"I fear thee, ancient Mariner!

I fear thy skinny hand!

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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."

"Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding

Guest!

This body dropt not down.

"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.

"I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;

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

"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;

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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.

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"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;

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But oh! more horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

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

They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light 275 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 280 Was a flash of golden fire.

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

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.

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"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, 295 That slid into my soul.

"The silly buckets on the deck,

That had so long remained,

"The loud wind never reached the ship, Yet now the ship moved on!

Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.

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"They groaned, they stirred, they all up

rose,

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:

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We were a ghastly crew.

"The body of my brother's son

Stood by me, knee to knee:

The body and I pulled at one rope, But he said nought to me."

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