Dreamland (Poe, set by A. Downes, H. Mulder, M. Van Höveln-Carpé) (The Lied and Art Song Texts Page: Texts and Translations to Lieder, mélodies, canzoni, and other classical vocal music)


 By 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 clime that lieth, sublime,
 Out of SPACE - out of TIME.

 Bottomless vales and boundless 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
 Their lone waters, lone and dead, - 
 Their sad waters, sad and chilly
 With the snows of the lolling lily, - 
 By the mountains - near the river
 Murmuring lowly, murmuring ever, - 
 By the grey 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
 'Tis a peaceful, soothing region - 
 For the spirit that walks in shadow
 'Tis - oh, 'tis 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.

Authorship

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

The Raven and Other Poems

Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive)

Andrew Downes (1950-)

Herman Mulder (1894-1989)

Myra Kinney Van Höveln-Carpé

Added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.

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