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Like one that hath been seven days drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;

The holy Hermit raised his eyes
And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,

Laughed loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.

"Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row."

And now, all in my own countree,

I stood on the firm land!

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

[The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him.]

"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!"

The Hermit crossed his brow.

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Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched

With a woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

[And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constrain eth him to travel from land to land. ]

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,
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.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!

The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden-bower the bride

And bride-maids singing are;
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:

So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
"Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!-

To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,

Old men, and babes, and loving friends,

And youths and maidens gay.

[And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.]

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding Guest!

He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

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,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man,

He rose the morrow morn.

VIRGINIA.

FRAGMENTS OF A LAY SUNG IN THE FORUM ON THE DAY WHEREON LUCIUS SEXTIUS SEXTINUS LATERANUS AND CAIUS LICINIUS CALVUS STOLO WERE ELECTED TRIBUNES OF THE COMMONS THE

FIFTH TIME, IN THE YEAR OF THE CITY,

CCCLXXXII.

YE good men of the Commons, with loving hearts and true,

Who stand by the bold Tribunes that still have stood by you,

Come, make a circle round me, and mark my tale with care,

A tale of what Rome once hath borne, of what Rome yet may bear.

This is no Grecian fable, of fountains running wine,

Of maids with snaky tresses, or sailors turned to swine.

Here, in this very Forum, under the noonday

sun,

In sight of all the people, the bloody deed was done.

Old men still creep among us who saw that fearful day,

Just seventy years and seven ago, when the wicked Ten bare sway.

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