Darkling Vision [completed & revised 2013]

Once I had a darkling vision, When sitting by the fireside, Of a dark and dreadful water, Forever deep and endless wide. There was anchored, gray and lifeless, Timbers rotting, oars astray, One sombre barque, a funereal vessel, Its windless shroud-like sails afray. 'Twas doubtless moored there since Doomsday. The time for prayer is past now, Now Judgment Day is done. The Chosen have departed. Damnation here we come. Gathered silent on the gray banks, Half-seen in the mirky dusk, Thronged a host of hooded phantoms, Each a desolate, empty husk. Ambling shades in shrouds nebulous, Newly from the grave arrived, Toward the Ferryman they writhed. O'er Styx the hearse-ship knived... Disembarked upon the far shore, 'Neath a gray and changeless sky, The new dead meet the long departed, And passing those pale spectres by, They wander ever onwards, drawn As if by some strange siren call T'ward the pool of blessed oblivion; There upon its banks they fall, And drinking deep from those still waters Find at last welcome release From fear, shame, guilt, regret and anguish, Loss and heartache - aye surcease. To that dark place bleak and lonely Will I surely one day come. Oh how I long, despairing nightly, To hear my conscience so struck dumb - Drowned in Lethe to succumb.