This Ferry Was As Busy As A Beaver Dam,
And All The World Seemed Anxious To Get Across The Merrimack
River at this particular point, waiting to get set over, - children
with their two cents done up in paper, jail-
Birds broke loose
and constable with warrant, travellers from distant lands to
distant lands, men and women to whom the Merrimack River was a
bar. There stands a gig in the gray morning, in the mist, the
impatient traveller pacing the wet shore with whip in hand, and
shouting through the fog after the regardless Charon and his
retreating ark, as if he might throw that passenger overboard and
return forthwith for himself; he will compensate him. He is to
break his fast at some unseen place on the opposite side. It may
be Ledyard or the Wandering Jew. Whence, pray, did he come out
of the foggy night? and whither through the sunny day will he
go? We observe only his transit; important to us, forgotten by
him, transiting all day. There are two of them. May be, they
are Virgil and Dante. But when they crossed the Styx, none were
seen bound up or down the stream, that I remember. It is only a
_transjectus_, a transitory voyage, like life itself, none but
the long-lived gods bound up or down the stream. Many of these
Monday men are ministers, no doubt, reseeking their parishes with
hired horses, with sermons in their valises all read and gutted,
the day after never with them.
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