This Side the Styx
Naked and shivering, how the oozy tide
Affrights me, waiting! Yonder boatman there
Is dull and moveless as the very stones
That fringe the infernal river. Woe is me!
All that I had, departed, and this state
Of aimless wandering on the farther shore
Is scarcely better than the life of forms
I see around me. Huge, deformèd toads,
Yellow and dripping monsters, loathsome plants
Dropping their blotched leaves in the reeking slime.
This is the land of Death in very truth.
The imprisoned air bears not my trembling voice
To shapes, my comrades in the upper life,
To those that sate and laughed with me of old,
Alas, how altered! Tullius Quæstor there
Stands solitary, he that lovèd mirth,
And drank the unmixed wine till morning came
With me, how often! Is that Poetus,
Mine ancient enemy? O Gods! he comes
Beating the dead air with his outstretched palms
In silent supplication. Now his mouth
Is shaping words, and yet there comes no sound;
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