94 MYSTERIES:
Dogs with men’s faces, and we beat them off
With scabbard, and the hideous path wound on.
And these perplexed our goings, for no light
Gleamed through the bare pine-ruins lava-struck,
Nor even the hellish fire of Etna’s maw.
But suddenly we came upon a pool
Dank, dark, and stagnant, evil to the touch,
Oozing towards us, but sucked suddenly,
Silently, horribly, by slow compulsion
Into the slipping sand, and vanishing,
Whereon we sawa little boat appear,
And in it such a figure as we knew
Was Death. But she, intolerant of delay,
Hailed him. The vessel floated to our feet,
And Death was not. She leapt within, and bent
Her own white shoulders to the thwart, and bade
Me steer, and keep stern watch with sword unsheathed
For fear of something that her soul had seen
Above. And thus upon the oily black
Silent swift river we sailed out to reach
Its source, no longer feeling as compelled,
But led by some incomprehensible
Passion. And here lewd fishes snapped at us, -
And watersnakes writhed silently toward
Our craft. But these I fought against, and smote
Head from foul body, to our further ill,
For frightful jelly-monsters grew apace,
And all the water grew one slimy mass
Of crawling tentacles, My sword was swift
That slashed and slew them, chiefly to protect