Classic Poem

CAPUTXIII

In the black and rocky cauldron
Lie the lake's unfathomed waters;
Pale and melancholy stars
Gaze from heaven. Night and silence.

Night and silence. Splash of oars;
And the skiff, a murmuring secret,
Floats along; the pretty nieces
Play the ferryman, to speed us.

Brisk and gay the swinging oars.
In the dark beneath the starlight
Gleam the bare and strenuous arms,
Glance and gleam the eyes of blue.

And beside me sits Lascaro
Pale as ever, still and speechless,
And the fancy shudders through me:
Can the man indeed be dead?

Am I dead myself, and sailing
To the darksome under-world,
With these ghost-companions steering
To the chilly realm of shadows?

Is this lake the gloomy water
Of the Styx? Has Proserpine.
Disappointed of her Charon,
Sent her maidens forth to fetch me?

Nay, I am not dead; within me
Unextinguished, unabated,
Leaps the vital flame exultant,
In my soul it burns and blazes.

And these maidens, blithely pulling
At the oars with jest and laughter,
Who besprinkle me with water,
As it splashes showering upward:

These robust and blooming wenches
Are no pallid forms and ghostly,
Maidens wan of Proserpine,
Shadow-maidens sent from hell!

To convince my doubting senses
That the upper-world their home was,
And, by facts, my faith to strengthen
In my own abundant life,

With my lips I leaned, and pressed them
On the dimpled cheeks and rosy,
And I reasoned, syllogising:
Yes, I kiss: am therefore living.

And once more I kissed the maidens
When we reached the shore, at parting.
In no other coin but this one
Would they let me pay my passage.