Once on a time in Charon’s wherry
Two Painters met, on Styx’s ferry. 
Good sir, said one, with bow profound,
I joy to meet thee under ground,
And though with zealous spite we strove
To blast each other’s fame above,
Yet here, as neither bay nor laurel
Can tempt us to prolong our quarrel,
I hope the hand which I extend
Will meet the welcome of a friend. 
Sweet sir! replied the other Shade,
While scorn on either nostril play’d,
Thy proffer’d love were great and kind
Could I in thee a rival find.—­
rival, sir! returned the first,
Ready with rising wind to burst,
Thy meekness, sure, in this I see;
We are not rivals, I agree: 
And therefore am I more inclin’d
To cherish one of humble mind,
Who apprehends that one above him
Can never condescend to love him.

Nor longer did their courteous guile,
Like serpent, twisting through a smile,
Each other sting in civil phrase,
And poison with envenom’d praise;
For now the fiend of anger rose,
Distending each death-withered nose,
And, rolling fierce each glassy eye,
Like owlets’ at the noonday sky,
Such flaming vollies pour’d of ire
As set old Charon’s phlegm on fire. 
Peace! peace! the grizly boatman cried,
You drown the roar of Styx’s tide;
Unmanner’d ghosts! if such your strife,
’Twere better you were still in life! 
If passions such as these you show
You’ll make another Earth below;
Which, sure, would be a viler birth,
Than if we made a Hell on Earth. 
At which in loud defensive strain
’Gan speak the angry Shades again. 
I’ll hear no more, cried he; ‘no more’
In echoes hoarse return’d the shore. 
To Minos’ court you soon shall hie,
(Chief Justice here) ’tis he will try
Your jealous cause, and prove at once
That only dunce can hate a dunce.

Thus check’d, in sullen mood they sped,
Nor more on either side was said;
Nor aught the dismal silence broke,
Save only when the boatman’s stroke,
Deep-whizzing through the wave was heard,
And now and then a spectre-bird,
Low-cow’ring, with a hungry scream. 
For spectre-fishes in the stream.

Now midway pass’d, the creaking oar
Is heard upon the fronting shore;
Where thronging round in many a band,
The curious ghosts beset the strand. 
Now suddenly the boat they ’spy,
Like gull diminish’d in the sky;
And now, like cloud of dusky white,
Slow sailing o’er the deep of night,
The sheeted group within the bark
Is seen amid the billows dark. 
Anon the keel with grating sound
They hear upon the pebbly ground. 
And now with kind, officious hand,
They help the ghostly crew to land.