Do those who drink of Lethe
Find surcease
From pain?
Or do they wrack their brain
In a vain
Attempt to regain
What is forever, lost?

O to be free of regret
And forever forget
A life ill spent.
But what cost
To drink
Of Lethe and no more think,
But merely to do
As like some automaton
We wander through
Hades
Where memory fades
And days are as one.

The departed are gone
But know it not, or perhaps they do
As tears may break through
When half remembered years
Enter the head
Of the living dead.

All men meet the ferryman, but not all fear
The guide
Who carries us to the other side.
It is Lethe drear
That inspires most dread.
The Greeks said
That the ferryman comes before we quench our thirst
In Lethe’s waters.
But no, ‘Tis not always so
For sons and daughters are left behind
When loved ones find
The river where memory fractures, before the body dies.