The waters that feel my powerless strength

And meet my homeless oar

Laboring over their ashen length

Never to find a shore.

But the gleam still skims

At times on the somnolent lake,

And a light there is that swims

With the whirl of a snake:

And tho’ dead be the hour i’ the air

And dayless the sky,

The heart is alive of the boatman there:

That boatman am I.

-Trumball Stickney from In the Past