Crossing Alone the Nighted Ferry (by A.E. Housman).

 

This is poem number 23 of

Housman's More Poems.:

Crossing alone the nighted ferry

    With the one coin for fee,

Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,

    Count you to find? Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,

    The true, sick-hearted slave,

Expect him not in the just city 

    And free land of the grave.

The poem with the stressed

syllables underlined:

Crossing alone the nighted ferry

    With the one coin for fee,

Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,

    Count you to find? Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,

    The true, sick-hearted slave,

Expect him not in the just city 

    And free land of the grave.

This is a poem about dreaming about

being free from a love no longer

wanted. In death the speaker

presumes he will be free at last, and

enjoys the idea of his beloved being

disappointed by his absence and

change of attitude in the next world.

The allusion to the Greek underworld

shows how much it was on Housman's

mind rather than a Christian other-

world. Rather than a place of reward

or punishment, it is just another

world.

© C.A. MacLennan 2025