394

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout,
The death-fires danced at night ;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

A spirit bad And some in dreams assurèd were

followed

them, one of Of the spirit that plagued us so;

the invisible

inhabitants Nine fathom deep he had followed us

of this plan.

et, neither From the land of mist and snow.

departed

Bouls nor

angels concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or ele ment without one or more.

mates,

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

The ship Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!

their sore

distress,

would fain Instead of the cross, the albatross

throw the

whole guilt About my neck was hung.

on the an

cient mari.

ner; in sign

whereof,

they hang the dead sea-bird

round his neck.

The an

c'ent mar

PART III.

THERE passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.

A weary time! a weary time!

How glazed each weary eye,

iner behold. When, looking westward, I beheld

eth a sign in

the element A something in the sky.

afar of.

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

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.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could not laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood;
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A. sail! a sail!

With throats unslaked, with black lips 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.

See! see! I cried, she tacks no more!
Hither, to work us weal,
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a-flame,
The day was wellnigh 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!)

395

At its near.
er ap-
proach, it
seemeth
him to be a
ship, and at
a dear ran-
som he
freeth his
speech from
the bonds
of thirst.

A flash of joy.

And horror follows; fo can it be a ship that

comes on

ward without-wind or tide ?

It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.

396

are seen as

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

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 ?

And its ribs Are those her ribs through which the sun
bars on the Did peer, as through a grate ?

face of the

setting sun. And is that woman all her crew?

The spectre

woman and Is that a Death? and are there two?

her death

mate, and Is Death that woman's mate?

no other, on

board the skeleton ship.

ike crew.

Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Like vessel, Her locks were yellow as gold;
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Life-in

Death and The naked hulk alongside came, Death have And the twain were casting dice; ship's crew; "The game is done! I've won, is done! I've won, I 've won!' Patter) win- Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

diced for the

and she (the

neth the

ancient mariner.

No twilight

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

courts of be sun.

At the rising We listened and looked sideways up! of the inoon, 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 whit

397

THE ANCIENT MARINER

From the sails the dew did drip
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The hornèd 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 crossbow !

One after another,

His shipmates drop down dead,

But Life-in Death begins her work on the ancient mariner.

FART IV,

"I FEAR thee, ancient mariner!

I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand! *

"I fear thee and thy glittering eye, And thy skinny hand, so brown.”

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

The wedding-guest feareth thai a spirit is talking to him;

39S

cient mari.

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest'

ner assureth This body dropt not down.

him f his bodily life, and proreedeth to relate his horrible

penance.

eth that

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide, wide sea!

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

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie!

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

And envi- I looked upon the rotting sea,
they hold And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

live, and so

many lie dead.

But the

curse liveth

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,

for him in Nor rot nor reek did they ;

the eye the dead men.

of

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;