Read the last stanza from Allen Ginsberg's "A Supermarket in California." Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher, what America did you have when Charon quit poling his
ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
At the end of his poem, Ginsberg uses these allusions to convey a feeling of
O hopefulness that modern-day America can turn back the hands of time.
O doom and gloom caused by the pressure of conforming with the middle-class American society.
sadness since the speaker will never experience the same America as in Whitman's day.
O pride and appreciation for his fellow poet's role in American literary history.