Eldorado

Edgar Allan Poe(1809–1849)

The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe, 1849

Gaily bedight,A gallant knight,In sunshine and in shadow,Had journeyed long,Singing a song,In search of Eldorado.

But he grew old—This knight so bold—And o'er his heart a shadowFell as he foundNo spot of groundThat looked like Eldorado.

And, as his strengthFailed him at length,He met a pilgrim shadow—"Shadow," said he,"Where can it be—This land of Eldorado?"

"Over the MountainsOf the Moon,Down the Valley of the Shadow,Ride, boldly ride,"The shade replied,—"If you seek for Eldorado!"

As printed in The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (vol. II, 1859), via the English Wikisource transcription. No emendation was made.

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About the poem

A gallant knight sets out, in sunshine and in shadow, singing, to seek Eldorado, the land of gold. But the years pass, a shadow falls over his heart, and he finds no land that looks like it. Old now and failing, he meets a pilgrim shadow and asks where Eldorado is.

The answer closes the poem and opens it at once: ride «over the Mountains of the Moon, down the Valley of the Shadow», if you seek Eldorado. Which is to say: it is not in this world. Poe wrote these lines in the year of his death, and they are at once an adventure poem and an allegory of every quest that ends, perhaps, only on the far side of life.