The ferryman, hands to oars,
so long against the waves,
struggled on, a green reed between his teeth.
But she, alas, who hailed him
beyond the waves, yonder,
ever further, there beyond the waves
receded into the mists.
The windows, with their eyes,
the towers’ dials on the bank,
watched him toil and strain so hard,
his whole body bent in half,
his wild muscles.
Suddenly an oar broke
which the current drove,
on rapid waves, towards the sea.
And out there, she who hailed him
in the winds and in the mists, seemed
to twist more madly her arms,
towards him who could not advance.
The ferryman, with surviving oar,
began to labour so hard
that his whole body cracked with effort
and his heart quivered with fever and terror.
With a sudden blow, the rudder broke
and the current drove
this mournful rag on towards the sea.
On the bank, windows
like immense febrile eyes
and the towers’ dials, those widows
so upright, along the banks of the rivers,
were stubbornly fixed on
this crazed man, in his doggedness
to prolong his insane voyage.
She yonder who hailed him,
in the mists, was yelling, yelling,
her head terrifyingly stretched
towards the unknown vastness.
The ferryman, like a man of iron,
planted in the pale storm
a solitary oar between his hands,
battled, bit at the waves anyway.
The visionary with his timeworn gaze
searched the hallucinated space
from where the voice always came to him
forlorn, beneath cold skies.
The surviving oar broke
and the current drove it
like a straw, on towards the sea.
The ferryman, arms dropping,
slumped gloomily on his seat,
loins exhausted with futile strain,
all adrift, a shock hit the boat,
he glanced behind him at the bank:
he had never even left the edge.
The windows and the dials
with their huge wide-open eyes
noted his ruined ardour;
but the stalwart old ferryman
retained all the same, for only God knows when,
the green reed between his teeth.