A Mock Charon. Dialogue

Richard Lovelace

                          CHA.  W.

W.    Charon! thou slave! thou fooll! thou cavaleer!
CHA.  A slave! a fool! what traitor's voice I hear?
W.    Come bring thy boat.    CH.  No, sir.    W.  No! sirrah, why?
CHA.  The blest will disagree, and fiends will mutiny
           At thy, at thy [un]numbred treachery.
W.    Villain, I have a pass which who disdains,
           I will sequester the Elizian plains.
CHA.  Woes me, ye gentle shades! where shall I dwell?
           He's come!  It is not safe to be in hell.

                           CHORUS.
      Thus man, his honor lost, falls on these shelves;
      Furies and fiends are still true to themselves.

CHA.  You must, lost fool, come in.    W.  Oh, let me in!
      But now I fear thy boat will sink with my ore-weighty sin.
      Where, courteous Charon, am I now?    CHA.  Vile rant!
      At the gates of thy supreme Judge Rhadamant.

                    DOUBLE CHORUS OF DIVELS.
      Welcome to rape, to theft, to perjurie,
      To all the ills thou wert, we canot hope to be;
      Oh, pitty us condemned!  Oh, cease to wooe,
      And softly, softly breath, least you infect us too.

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