THE ANCIENT MARINER. How loudly his sweet voice he rears! He kneels at morn, at noon, and eve It is the moss that wholly hides The skiff-boat neared-I heard them talk: Where are those lights so many and fair 'Strange, by my faith,' the hermit said, And they answered not our cheer! The planks look warped; and see those sails, I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were Brown skeletons of leaves that lag 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. 'I am afeared.'. Push on, push on!' Said the hermit, cheerily. The boat came closer to the ship, But I nor spake nor stirred; The boat came close beneath the ship, And straight a sound was heard. Under the water it rumbled on, It reached the ship, it split the bay; 241 Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, Which sky and ocean smote, Like one that hath been seven days drowned But swift as dreams myself I found Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, I moved my lips-the pilot shrieked, The holy hermit raised his eyes, I took the oars; the pilot's boy, Laughed loud and long, and all the while Ha ha!' quoth he, full plain I see And now, all in my own countree, I stood on the firm land! The hermit stepped forth from the boat, 'Oh, shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!' The hermit crossed his brow: 'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say What manner of man art thou?' Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a woful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale; And then it left me free. THE ANCIENT MARINER. Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns; And till my ghastly tale is told, I pass, like night, from land to land: I know the man that must hear me : What loud uproar bursts from that door! But in the garden bower the bride O wedding-guest! this soul hath been So lonely 'twas, that God himself Oh, sweeter than the marriage-feast, 'Tis sweeter far to me To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company! To talk together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Farewell, farewell! but this I tell, He prayeth best who loveth best 243 The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Is gone; and now the wedding-guest He went like one that hath been stunned, A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. W. C. BRYANT. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear. Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead: They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's tread. The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay, And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day. The wind-flower and the violet, they perish'd long ago, And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the summer glow; But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood, And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood, Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls the plague ou men, And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen. CAVALRY CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA. 245 And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come, To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home; When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still, And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill, The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore; And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more. CAVALRY CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA. ALFRED TENNYSON. HALF a league, half a league, half a league onward! Into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred. Not though the soldiers knew some one had blundered: Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die! Into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred. Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode, and well Into the jaws of death-into the mouth of hellrode the Six Hundred. |