Consistency in Tense

Charon, by Lord Dunsany, Part 1 of 2, from Fifty-One Tales London, 1915

Charon (leans) forward and (rows) . All things (are) one with his weariness. It (is) not with him a matter of years or of centuries, but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain in the arms that (has become) for him part of the scheme that the gods (have made) and (is) of a piece with Eternity. If the gods (would) even (send) him a contrary wind it (would divide) all time in his memory into two equal slabs. So grey (are) all things always where he (is) that if any radiance (lingers) a moment among the dead, on the face of such a queen perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes (can) not (perceive) it. It (is) strange that the dead nowadays (are coming) in such numbers. They (are coming) in thousands where they used to come in fifties. It (is) neither Charon's duty nor his wont to ponder in his grey soul why these things (may) be. Charon (leans) forward and (rows) .