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GALSWORTHY TAKES THE FERRY, by                    
First Line: Old charon had momentous freight that day
Last Line: Met and with diffident good-will clasped hands.
Subject(s): Charon; Ferry Boats; Galsworthy, John (1867-1933); Styx (river)


Old Charon had momentous freight that day.
I wonder if the twilit Stygian calm
Was stirred when his approach was heralded;
If those who gathered at the landing place
Talked and surmised, and shouldered close to look
At him of nobler bearing, kindlier eye
And graver smile than most. Do they, perhaps
Whose souls have thinner shrouding, recognize
With their accustomed shadow-piercing glance
That inner flame our eyes so dimly see?
To write a book;
To see a thing, and show it forth in print;
To put our fellows on the living page;
It is a life work worthy of the best --
The best in us, the best in those who read.
Always there have been those whose keener eyes
Saw more; and they, seeing more, put what they saw
In book, in marble, painting, or clear note.
For those so visioned, life can never hold
A song, a mood, a placidly drawn breath
Without an added overtone of pain,
The pain that works like leaven in the soul:
Bringing forth something for the world to see,
To hear, to grace with comment -- to forget.
No threat will serve; who has will surely give.
No threat will serve; the vision must be told.

The ferry touched the shore. The shades approached,
And looked, and turned away, with smile and shrug.
Some, it may be, drew near and greeted him
With hail and salutation, comradely.
I like to think that one came close; that there
In that gray moment, Soames and his creator
Met and with diffident good-will clasped hands.





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