... Plutus limps homeward with us, as we leave The portals of the temple where we knelt And listened while the god of eloquence (Hermes of ancient days, but now disguised In sable vestments) with that other god Somnus, the son of Erebus and Nog, Fights in unequal contest for our souls; The dreadful sovereign of the under world Still shakes his sceptre at us, and we hear The baying of the triple-throated hound; Eros-is young as ever, and as fair The lovely Goddess born of ... — The Poet at the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.