The sweet Lenore hath gone before, with Hope that flew beside,
Leaving thee wild for the dear child that should have been thy bride:
For her, the fair and debonair, that now so lowly lies,
The life upon her yellow hair but not within her eyes; The life still there, upon her hair the death upon
"Avaunt! avaunt! from fiends below, the indignant ghost is riven
From Hell unto a high estate far up within the Heaven
From grief and groan, to a golden throne, beside the King of Heaven!
Let no bell toll, then, lest her soul, amid its hallowed mirth,
Should catch the note as it doth float up from the damned Earth!
And I!-to-night my heart is light!-no dirge will I upraise,
But waft the angel on her flight with a Pæan of old days!"
Y a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule:
From a wild weird elime that lieth, subli,
Out of Space - out of Time.
Bottomless vales and Loundless floods,
And chasms and caves and Titan woods,
With forms that no man can discover
For the tears that drip all over;
Mountains toppling evermore
Into seas without a shore;
Seas that restlessly aspire,
Surging, unto skies of fire;
Lakes that endlessly outspread
Their lone waters, lone and dead, -
Their still waters, still and chilly
With the snows of the lolling lily.
By the lakes that thus outspread
The lone waters, lone and dead,-
Tad waters, sad and chilly
W, the snows of the lolling lily;
B. the mountains near the river
Mirring lowly, murmuring ever;
By the gray woods, by the swamp
Where the toad and the newt encamp;
By the dismal tarns and pools
Where dwell the Ghouls;
By each spot the most unholy,
In each nook most melancholy,
There the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past:
Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by,
White-robed forms of friends long given,
In agony, to the Earth and Heaven.
For the heart whose woes are legion
'T is a peaceful, soothing region;
For the spirit that walks in shadow
"T is
oh, 't is an Eldorado!
But the traveller, travelling through it,
May not dare not openly view it;
Never its mysteries are exposed
To the weak human eye unclosed;
So wills its King, who hath forbid
The uplifting of the fringed lid;
And thus the sad Soul that here passes
Beholds it but through darkened glasses.
By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named Night,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have wandered home but newly
From this ultimate dim Thule.
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