Archibald Lampman

Alcyone Archibald Lampman

Book Excerptchalklike armsOf him that oared it, dumbly to and fro, Went gliding, and the struggling ghosts in swarmsLeaped in and passed, but myriads more behindCrowded the dismal beaches. One might hearA tumult of entreaty thin and clearRise like the whistle of a winter wind. And still the little figure stood besideThe hideous stream, and toward the whispering prowHeld forth his tender tremulous hands, and cried, Now to the awful ferryman, and nowTo her that battled with the shades in vain. Sometimes impending over all her sightThe spongy dark and the phantasmal flightOf things half-shapen passed and hid the plain. And sometimes in a gust a sort of windDrove by, and where its power was hurled, She saw across the twilight, jarred and thinned, Those gloomy meadows of the under world, Where never sunlight was, nor grass, nor trees, And the dim pathways from the Stygian shore, Sombre and swart and barren, wandere