A spirit had followed them; one of the invisible in About, about, in reel and rout And some in dreams assured were habitants of this Nine fathom deep he had follow'd us nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more. When that strange shape drove sud denly Betwixt us and the sun. And straight the sun was fleck'd with It seemeth him bars, (Heaven's mother send us grace!) With broad and burning face. Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat And every tongue, through utter How fast she nears and rears! drought, Was wither'd at the root; We could not speak, no more than if Like restless gossamers? A flash of joy. stood; I bit my arm, I suck'd the blood, but the skeleton of a ship. Her locks were yellow as gold: Who thicks man's blood with cold. The naked hulk alongside came, Like vessel, like crew! Death and Lifein-Death have diced for the "The game is done! I've won, I've ship's crew, and won !" Quoth she, and whistles thrice. she, the latter, winneth the an cient mariner. The sun's rim dips; the stars rush No twilight out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea within the courts of the sun. We listen'd and look'd sideways up! At the rising of My life-blood seem'd to sip! The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp With throats unslaked, with black From the sails the dew did drip lips baked, Till clomb above the eastern bar The horned moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip. the moon, But Life-in-Death The souls did from their bodies fly, Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, begins her work on the ancient They fled to bliss or wo! But the curse liv. eth for him in the eye of the dead men. I look'd to heaven, and tried to pray; I closed my lids, and kept them close, Like April hoar-frost spread; The charmed water burnt alway The selfsame moment PART V. O SLEEP! it is a gentle thing, For the sky and the sea, and the sea That slid into my soul. and the sky, Lay like a load on my weary eye The cold sweat melted from their limbs, Nor rot nor reek did they : [me The look with which they look'd on The silly buckets on the deck, That had so long remain❜d, calm, Their beauty and their happiness. He blesseth them in his heart. The spell begins to break. By grace of the holy mother, the ancient mariner I dreamt that they were fill'd with is refreshed with dew; And when I awoke it rain'd. My lips were wet, my throat was cold, An orphan's curse would drag to hell And still my body drank. rain. He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and But with its sound it shook the sails, commotions in That were so thin and sere. The upper air burst into life! To and fro they were hurried about! Mr. Wordsworth. It was on a delightful walk from Nether And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; the sky and the element. And the rain pour'd down from one It ceased; yet still the sails made on black cloud; The moon was at its edge. A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, The thick black cloud was cleft, and That to the sleeping woods all night Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the moon The dead men gave a groan. Singeth a quiet tune. Till noon we quietly sailed on, Under the keel nine fathom deep, The lonesome spirit from the south pole carries on the ship as far as the line, in obedience to the The sails at noon left off their tune, angelic troop, but They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all And the ship stood still also. uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; The sun, right up above the mast, Had fix'd her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan to stir, With a short uneasy motion The helmsman steer'd, the ship moved Backwards and forwards half her on; Yet never a breeze up blew ; The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do; length With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go, She made a sudden bound: They raised their limbs like lifeless It flung the blood into my head, tools And I fell down in a swound. How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; But ere my living life return'd, I heard and in my soul discern'd Two VOICES in the air. still requireth Vengeance. The polar spirit fellow dæmons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the "Is it be?" quoth one, "is this the other, that pen. man? By Him who died on cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless albatross. "The spirit who bideth by himself The other was a softer voice, And penance more will do." PART VI. FIRST VOICE. BUT tell me, tell me! speak again, SECOND VOICE. Still as a slave before his lord, His great bright eye most silently Up to the moon is cast ance long and heavy for the ancient mariner hath been accorded to the polar spirit, who returneth southward. Fly, brother, fly! more high, more The moonlight steep'd in silentness, The steady weathercock. Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat; A man all light, a seraph-man, The pang, the curse, with which they On every corse there stood. died, But soon there breathed a wind on me, The pilot and the pilot's boy, And appear in their own forms of light. the wood, THIS hermit good lives in that wood The hermit of That come from a far countrée. The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them The hermit stepp'd forth from the talk, "Why this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights, so many and fair, That signal made but now ?" Approacheth the "Strange, by my faith!" the hermit ship with wonder. said The ship sudden. by sinketh. "And they answer not our cheer! The planks look'd warp'd! and see those sails, How thin they are and sere! I never saw aught like to them, What manner of man art thou ?" Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd With a woful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale; Since then, at an uncertain hour, «Brown skeletons of leaves that lag And till my ghastly tale is told, My forest brook along; When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the she-wolf's young." "Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look(The pilot made reply,) This heart within me burns. I pass, like night, from land to land: I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach. I am a-fear'd."-" Push on, push on!" What loud uproar bursts from that Said the hermit cheerily. The boat came closer to the ship, The boat came close beneath the ship, Under the water it rumbled on, It reach'd the ship, it split the bay; Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, I moved my lips-the pilot shriek'd, I took the oars: the pilot's boy, door! The wedding-guests are there O wedding-guest! this soul hath been O sweeter than the marriage-feast, To walk together to the kirk, While each to his great Father bends, Farewell, farewell! but this I tell He prayeth best, who loveth best All things, both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all. The mariner, whose eye is bright, Laugh'd loud and long, and all the Whose beard with age is hoar, while His eyes went to and fro, Is gone and now the wedding-guest Turn'd from the bridegroom's door. and the penance of life falls on him. And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constrain. eth him to travel from land to land. And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth. |