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'God save thee, ancient mariner,

From the fiends that plague thee thus ! Why look'st thou so? With my cross-bow I shot the albatross.

PART II.

The sun now rose upon the right,
Out of the sea came he;

Still 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,
And it would work 'em wo;

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.

'Twas 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, 'Twas 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.

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.
And some in dreams assured were
Of the spirit that plagued us so ;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

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.

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

Instead of the cross the albatross
About my neck was hung.

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!
When looking westward I beheld
A something in the sky.

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 nor 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 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?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
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.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;

The game is done! I've won, 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 wo!
And every soul it passed me by
Like the whizz of my cross-bow.

PART 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.'

Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest,
This body dropped 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 gushed,

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 a 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 nowhere did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoarfrost spread;

But where the ship's huge shadow lay
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water snakes:

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.

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.

The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

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

PART V.

O 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,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I woke it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:

I was so light-almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:

It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen;

To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,

The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,

And the sails did sigh like sedge;

And the rain poured down from one black cloud; The moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still

The moon was at its side:

Like waters shot from some high crag,

The lightning fell with never a jag,

A river steep and wide.

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.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
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;

They raised their limbs like lifeless tools-
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son

Stood by me, knee to knee:

PART VI.

The body and I pulled at one rope,

But he said nought to me.

'I fear thee, ancient mariner!"

Be calm thou wedding-guest!

'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:

For when it dawned, they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes, a-dropping from the sky,
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,

How they seemed to fill the sea and air,
With their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments,

Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe;
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid; and it was he
That made the ship to go.

The sails at noon left off their tune,

And the ship stood still also.

The sun, right up above the mast,

Had fixed her to the ocean;
But in a minute she 'gan stir
With a short uneasy motion-

Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

Then, like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound;
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.

How long in that same fit I lay
I have not to declare;

But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

Is it he?' quoth one 'Is this the man!
By him who died on cross,

With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,

He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew;
Quoth he, 'The man hath
And penance more will do.

penance done,

First Voice.

But tell me! tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing-

What makes that ship drive on so fast!
What is the ocean doing?

Second Voice.

Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the moon is cast-

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see how graciously
She looketh down on him.

First Voice.

But why drives on that ship so fast, Without or wave or wind?

Second Voice.

The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated;

For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the mariner's trance is abated.

I woke, and we were sailing on

As in a gentle weather;

'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high; The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,

For a charnel-dungeon fitter;
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away;

I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapt; once more

I viewed the ocean green,

And looked far forth, yet little saw

Of what had else been seen

Like one that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round, walks on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,

Nor sound nor motion made;

Its path was not upon the sea,

In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring-

It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze
On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?

Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree !

We drifted o'er the harbour bar,
And I with sobs did pray-
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn !
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less
That stands above the rock :

The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:

I turned my eyes upon the deck-
Oh Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat;
And, by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart-

No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,

I heard the pilot's cheer;

My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

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
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?'

'Strange, by my faith!' the hermit said-
'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)

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,
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,
Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips-the pilot shrieked,
And fell down in a fit;

The holy hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars; the pilot's boy,

Who now doth crazy go,

Laughed loud and long, and all the while His eyes went to and fro.

Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see, The devil knows how to row.'

And now, all in my own countree,

I stood on the firm land!

The hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'
The hermit crossed his brow.

'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say What manner of man art thou?'

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a woful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bridemaids singing are:
And hark! the little vesper bell
Which biddeth me to prayer.

O wedding-guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:

So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!

To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!
Farewell, farewell; but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding-guest:
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

The mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone and now the wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

Ode to the Departing Year [1795.]

I.

Spirit who sweepest the wild harp of time!
It is most hard, with an untroubled ear
Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!
Yet, mine eye fixed on heaven's unchanging clime
Long when I listened, free from mortal fear,

With inward stillness, and submitted mind;
When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,
I saw the train of the departing year!

Starting from my silent sadness,
Then with no unholy madness,

Ere yet the entered cloud foreclosed my sight,

I raised the impetuous song, and solemnised his flight.

II.

Hither, from the recent tomb,

From the prison's direr gloom,
From Distemper's midnight anguish;

And thence, where Poverty doth waste and languish ;
Or where, his two bright torches blending,
Love illumines manhood's maze;

Or where, o'er cradled infants bending,
Hope has fixed her wishful gaze,
Hither, in perplexed dance,

Ye Woes! ye young-eyed Joys! advance!
By Time's wild harp, and by the hand
Whose indefatigable sweep
Raises its fateful strings from sleep,

I bid you haste, a mixed tumultuous band!
From every private bower,

And each domestic hearth,
Haste for one solemn hour;

And with a loud and yet a louder voice,
O'er Nature struggling in portentous birth
Weep and rejoice!

Still echoes the dread name that o'er the earth
Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of hell:
And now advance in saintly jubilee

Justice and Truth! They, too, have heard thy spell,
They, too, obey thy name, divinest Liberty!

III.

I marked Ambition in his war-array!

I heard the mailed monarch's troublous cry"Ah! wherefore does the northern conqueress stay! Groans not her chariot on its onward way?'

Fly, mailed monarch, fly!

Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace,
No more on Murder's lurid face

The insatiate hag shall gloat with drunken eye!

Manes of the unnumbered slain!
Ye that gasped on Warsaw's plain!
Ye that erst at Ismail's tower,
When human ruin choked the streams,
Fell in conquest's glutted hour,

'Mid women's shrieks and infants' screams! Spirits of the uncoffined slain,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling,
Oft, at night, in misty train,

Kush around her narrow dwelling!
The exterminating fiend is fled-
(Foul her life, and dark her doom)
Mighty armies of the dead

Dance like death-fires round her tomb!
Then with prophetic song relate
Each some tyrant-murderer's fate!

IV.

Departing year! 'twas on no earthly shore
My soul beheld thy vision! Where alone,
Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne,
Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscribed with gore,
With many an unimaginable groan

Thou storied'st thy sad hours! Silence ensued,
Deep silence o'er the ethereal multitude,

Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with glories shone.

Then, his eye wild ardours glancing,
From the choired gods advancing,

The Spirit of the earth made reverence meet,
And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat.

V.

Throughout the blissful throng
Hushed were harp and song:

Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven
(The mystic words of Heaven)
Permissive signal make:

The fervent Spirit bowed, then spread his wings and spake:

"Thou in stormy blackness throning
Love and uncreated Light,

By the Earth's unsolaced groaning,
Seize thy terrors, Arm of might!
By Peace with proffered insult scared,

Masked Hate and envying Scorn!
By years of havoc yet unborn!

And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared!
But chief by Afric's wrongs,

Strange, horrible, and foul!

By what deep guilt belongs

To the deaf Synod, "full of gifts and lies " By Wealth's insensate laugh! by Torture's howl!

Avenger, rise!

For ever shall the thankless island scowl,
Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow?
Speak! from thy storm-black heaven, O speak aloud!
And on the darkling foe

Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud!
O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow!
The past to thee, to thee the future cries!
Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below!
Rise, God of Nature! rise.'

VI.

The voice had ceased, the vision fled;
Yet still I gasped and reeled with dread.
And ever, when the dream of night
Renews the phantom to my sight,
Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;

My ears throb hot; my eyeballs start;
My brain with horrid tumult swims;
Wild is the tempest of my heart;
And my thick and struggling breath
Imitates the toil of death!

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