ship that

comes on

Without a breeeze, without a tide, ward without She steadies with upright keel!

wind or tide?

It seemeth him but the

skeleton of a ship.

And its ribs

are seen as

bars on the face of the setting Sun. The spectre

woman and her death

mate, and no

other on board

The western wave was all a-flame.
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)

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?

Are those her ribs through which the 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?

the skeleton- Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold:

ship.

Like vessel, Her skin was as white as leprosy,

like crew!

Death and

The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came, Life-in-death And the twain were casting dice ;

have diced

"The game is done! I've, I've 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-

Till clomb above the eastern bar

The horned Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,-
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,

Like the whizz of my cross-bow!

for the ship's
crew, and
she (the lat-
ter) winneth
the ancient
Mariner.

No twilight
within the
courts of the
sun.

At the rising

of the Moon.

One after another,

His shipmates drop down dead.

But Life-inDeath begins her work on the ancient Mariner.

The wedding-
guest feareth
that a spirit
is talking to
him.

But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily

66

I

PART IV.

FEAR thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.1

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown."-
Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest!
This body dropt not down.

life, and pro- Alone, alone, all, all alone,

ceedeth to re

late his horri- Alone on a wide wide sea!

ble penance. And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.

He despiseth The many men, so beautiful!

the creatures

of the calm.

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked

And envieth

upon

the rotting sea,

that they

should live,

And drew my eyes away;

and so many I looked upon the rotting deck, And there the dead men lay.

lie dead.

1 For the last two lines of this stanza, I am indebted to Mr. Wordsworth. It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his sister, in the autumn of 1797, that this poem was planned, and in part composed.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky

Lay like a load on my weary eye,

And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they :

The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide :

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

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 every where 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.

By the light Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:

of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.

They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish 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.

Their beauty O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:

and their

happiness.

He blesseth

them in his heart.

The spell be.

gins to break

A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:

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

The selfsame moment I could
And from my neck so free

pray;

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

PART V.

Ο

H Sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!