Page:The Colonnades a Poem.pdf/21

I dreamed of Charon, and his phantom craft:
Not him, decrepit churl whom poets feign,
A murky fright that flits the straits of death
Like a lost bat between the two worlds' walls,
While o'er the passenger Time's quickening vans
Kindle a dream of Hell in his cold brain;
His eye was mellow as a lake at evening;
And in the foreground of the world to come
He stood, a shadow truly, with his forehead
And sombre cheeks in folded shadows swathed,
But 'round his muffled brow a planet flare
Told his divine original—a son
Of Agelastus—him that never smiles.

This might be butterfly to that old grub
To whom bright Socrates, a trifle flushed
With the strong hemlock—with his dexter foot
Bending the laboring oar to speed the trip,
Cried Man and boy, when was it, my good friend,
That thou last washed thyself?"—and stared him so,
The hard-earned penny from his gaping teeth
The boatman dropped 'long side;—whereat he swore
By all the gold in Pluto's coffers locked,
(Whereto this ferriage tributary passed),
Come such another he would toll no more.