Where Acheron, Styx, Cocytus meet, and pour,
In one vast whirlpool, mingled filth and sand,
And saw upon the bank old Charon stand.
Squalid ferryman, he keeps watch and ward
Over all these waters and streams; a beard
Shaggy, dirty-white, from his chin flows down;
Frowzy his cloak tied by a knot; a frown
Sits on his brow, o’er eyes twin pools of fire.
The barge, poled, sails to help, is, like the sire,
In iron-rusty age, but crude-green, good