The Household Book of Poetry

mariner be

RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

PART III.

617

And straight the sun was flecked with It seemeth bars,

There passed a weary time. Each (Heaven's mother send us grace!)

throat

The ancient When, looking westward, I beheld
holdeth a A something in the sky.
sign in the

element

afar off.

At first it seemed a little speck,

And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at
last

A certain shape, I wist

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared;
As if it dodged a water-sprite,

It plunged and tacked and veered.

As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Alas! thought I-and my heart beat
loud-

How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the

sun,

Like restless gossameres?

him but the skeleton of a ship.

Are those her ribs through which the And its ribs

sun

Did peer, as through a grate?

And is that woman all her crew?

Is that a death? and are there two?

Is death that woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were
free,

At its near- With throats unslaked, with black lips Her locks were yellow as gold;

are seen as bars on the face of the setting sun. The spectrewoman and her deathmate, and no other on board the skeleton ship.

Like vessel, like crew!

Death and
Life-in-
Death have

With throats unslaked, with black lips The game is done-I've won! I've diced for

baked,

Agape they heard me call;

Gramercy! they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

won!'

Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out,
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre bark.

We listened, and looked sideways up;
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip;
The stars were dim, and thick the night;
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed

white;

From the sails the dew did drip

When that strange shape drove sud- Till clomb above the eastern bar

denly

Betwixt us and the sun.

The horned moon, with one bright star

Within the nether tip.

the ship's crew, and

she (the latter) winneth the ancient mariner.

No twilight within the courts of

the sun.

At the rising of the moon,

One after

another.

One after one, by the star-dogged I closed my lids, and kept them

moon,

Too quick for groan or sigh,

close,

And the balls like pulses beat;

Each turned his face with a ghastly For the sky and the sea and the sea and

tures of the And they all dead did lie;

calm.

The moving moon went up the sky,

And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.-

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying moon, and

the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country, and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay
The charmed water burnt alway,
A still and awful red.

And a thousand thousand slimy things Beyond the shadow of the ship

Lived on -and so did I.

I watched the water-snakes; They moved in tracks of shining And when they reared, the light

Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire.

calm.

RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

619

Their beau- Oh happy living things! no tongue ty and their

happiness. Their beauty might declare;

And the coming wind did roar more
loud,

A spring of love gushed from my And the sails did sigh like sedge;
heart,

He blesseth And I blessed them unaware
them in his
heart.

The spell begins to break.

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free

The albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

PART V.

Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven
That slid into my soul.

And the rain poured down from one
black cloud-

The moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The moon was at its side;

Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag —

A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship, The bodies

Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all

uprose

Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved

on;

Yet never a breeze up blew ;

The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;

They raised their limbs like lifeless
tools-

We were a ghastly crew.

I moved, and could not feel my The body of my brother's son

of the ship's crew are in

spired, and the ship

moves on.

But not by

the souls of

the men, nor by demons

"Twas not those souls that fled in pain, of earth or

Which to their corses came again,

But a troop of spirits blest;

middle air, but by a blessed

For when it dawned they dropped their troop of an

arms,

And clustered round the mast;

gelic spirits, sent down

by the invocation of the

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their guardian

mouths,

And from their bodies passed.

saint.

The lonesome spirit from the

Around, around flew each sweet sound, How long in that same fit I lay

Then darted to the sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes, a-dropping from the sky,
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are-
How they seemed to fill the sea and
air

With their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made

A pleasant noise till noon

A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe;
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel, nine fathom deep, From the land of mist and snow South Pole The spirit slid; and it was he

carries on

the ship as That made the ship to go.

far as the

line in obe- The sails at noon left off their tune,

dience to the And the ship stood still also.

angelic

troop; but still requir eth vengeance.

The sun, right up above the mast,

I have not to declare;

But ere my living life returned

I heard, and in my soul discerned, Two voices in the air:

The polar spirit's fellow demons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them

'Is it he?' quoth one, is this the man? relate, one By him who died on cross,

With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless albatross!

to the other, that penance, long and heavy for the ancient mariner, hath been accorded to the polar spirit, who returneth southward.

Had fixed her to the ocean;

But in a minute she 'gan stir,

With a short, uneasy motion

With a short, uneasy motion.

FIRST VOICE.

The mariner

Backwards and forwards half her length,But why drives on that ship so hath been

RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high! Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less

The pang, the curse, with which they That stands above the rock;

died,

621

And the ancient mari

ner beholdeth his native coun

try.

The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,

And appear in their own forms of light.

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