"The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.

"I saw a third—I heard his voice:

It is the Hermit good!

He singeth loud his godly hymns

That he makes in the wood.

He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away

The Albatross's blood."

PART VII.

"This Hermit good lives in that wood T)ie Hermit of
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.

"He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve —

He hath a cushion plump:

It is the moss that wholly hides

The rotted old oak stump.

"The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
'Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?'

Aijproacheth the "' Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said

ship with wondera

'And they answered not our cheer.

The planks looked warped! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!

I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were

"' Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below
That eats the she-wolf's young.'

"' Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
(The Pilot made reply)
I am a-feared '—' Push on, push on!'
Said the Hermit cheerily.

"The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

"Under the water it rumbled on, The ship sua

Still louder and more dread:

It reached the ship, it split the bay;

The ship went down like lead.

"Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, The ancient Ma

... . riner is saved in

Which sky and ocean smote, the Pilot's boat.

Like one that hath been seven days drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found

Within the Pilot's boat.