It was a cab, worn, withered, and blighted. A man like a moth-eaten Archangel Gabriel Sat on the box of the crazy thing. Obviously it had been through Hell; But its inside was musty and threadbare As though companies of faded virgins Had ridden in it for generations. The horse, as you looked at him from the sidewalk, Staggered with all four legs; But to one sitting inside the cab He must have seemed so thin of beam As to vanish altogether. The Archangel Gabriel was inclined to stoutness And wore a well-preserved Derby hat. He drove through the night incredulously, With vague haltings As if ready to be struck dumb Should passengers dare To accept his ciceronage. Ah, the passengers! When they rushed Out of a grilled doorway and across the sidewalk Their white faces glimmered As though they would have accepted anything That could carry them swiftly or slowly Away from the insupportable Oppression of Here and Now. They bundled into the cab,— Four of them— Two, whose glass throats were wound with wire and silver Being destined for destruction That the other two, with human throats, Might inherit the _Vita Nuova_. Then suddenly the Archangel Gabriel, Leaving the Plaza and steering northwesterly, Drove his precarious vehicle to the entrance of the Park And straight down Into the depths of the sea. Through watery glooms And swift gleams as of wave-light,— Along alleys where vast forests of sea-weed Aped the summer swaying of terrestrial foliage, The silent cab moved on, And the midnight ocean closed around it. Huge branches of coral Inky or amber Lifted themselves in the gloom Like processional lamp-posts; And now and then a peering dolphin Poised questioningly beside the path Like a policeman. Now they were gone beyond my sight. Slowly I followed them; But the sea retreated before me; I could not enter the depths of their traversing. And I walked as in a trance Pursuing the receding waters Down the avenues of lamp-posts, Of foliage, of policemen. Then, after hours, years, ages, I saw my quarry returning; And the sea drew forward with it In a dark wave and swept over me. There was the cab,— And lo! of the two ghostly passengers, One had become an undulant mermaid And the other a surging triton— And they swayed in hollows and foam-heights Of the shaken water— Knees, hair, arms Tossed in confusion— They were spilled out upon the deep And the sea-birds shrieked above them. I think that they went then To the Sea King’s Palace; But this is all That I myself saw. VI.