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.
This is the only time the speaker uses “I”. Up until this point, people could have thought that this was all a tale that the speaker is musing, but now, we know that he himself has traveled there before.
Dream-Land