Simbolismo

Tra misticismo e magia. Riflessione sull’arte ceca.

Dream-Land

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 weird 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   
’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 fring’d 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.

“Lo spirito della madre defunta“