THE ANCIENT MARINER.

My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are:
Regained my freedom with a sigh.

even I

SONNET.-J. Blanco White.

MYSTERIOUS night! when our first parent knew
Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name,
Did he not tremble for this lovely frame,
This glorious canopy of light and blue?
Yet 'neath a curtain of translucent dew,
Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame,
Hesperus with the host of heaven came,
And, lo! creation widened in man's view.
Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed
Within thy beams, O sun? or who could find,
Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood revealed,
That to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind?
Why do we, then, shun death with anxious strife?
If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life

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THE ANCIENT MARINER. - Coleridge.

PART I.

Ir is an ancient mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

"By thy long gray beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp's thou me ?

An ancient mariner meeteth three gallants bidder to a wedding-feast and detair eth ons.

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The wedding-guest is spellbound by

the eye of

the old sea

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

"The bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin ;

The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.

“Hold off! unhand me, graybeard loon !
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye,
The wedding-guest stood still,

And listens like a three-years' child :

faring man, The mariner hath his will.

and con

strained to hear his

tale.

The mari

ner tells

The wedding-guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear ;

And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed mariner.

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left,

how the ship Out of the sea came he

sailed

southward,

with a good And he shone bright, and on the right

wind and

fair weath. Went down into the sea.

er, till it

reached the line.

The wedding-guest

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon

The wedding-guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,

heareth the Red as a rose is she;

bridal mu

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

Nodding their heads, before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The wedding-guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed mariner.

And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong;

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe
And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold;

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen;

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken:
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around :

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound.

At length did cross an albatross,

Thorough the fog it came :

391

sic; but the mariner continueth his tale.

The ship drawn by a storm toward the

south pole.

The land of

ice and of fearful Sounds, where no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great sea-bird, alled the albatioss,

came

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

through the As if it had been a Christian soul,

snow-log,

and was received with

great joy

We hailed it in God's name.

and hospi It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And round and round it flew.

tality.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit ;
The helmsman steered us through.

And a good south wind sprung up behind
The albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo.

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white
Glimmered the white moonshine.

His ship

mates cry

PART II.

THE sun now rose upon the right :

Out of the sea came he,

Stil. hid in mist, and on the left

Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind

But no sweet bird did follow,

Nor any day, for food or play,

Came to the mariner's hollo.

And I had done a hellish thing,

out against And it would work 'em woe;

he ancient

THE ANCIENT MARINEP.

For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow:

Ah, wretch! said they, the bird to slay
That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious sun uprist;

Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist:

"T was right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'T was sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody sun at noon

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

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mariner for killing the bird of goo luck.

But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus

make themselves accomplices in the crime.

The fair breeze con. tinues; ho ship enters the Pacifc Ocean, and sails northward even till it reach es the line

The ship bath been suddenly becalmed.

And the a batross be• gins to be avenged.