The upper air burst into life!

In his loneliness The moving Moon went up the sky, And a hundred fire-flags sheen,

and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the

stars that still so

And nowhere did abide :

Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside

journ, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unan

nounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is

a silent joy at their arrival.

By the light of

the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the

great calm.

Their beauty and their happiness.

He blesseth them in his heart.

The spell begins to break.

By grace of the

holy Mother, the

ancient Mariner

is refreshed with

rain.

Her beams bemock'd the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost 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 watch'd the water-snakes :
They moved in tracks of shining
white,

And when they rear'd, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watch'd their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coil'd 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 gush'd from my
heart,

And I bless'd them unaware:

in the sky and

the element.

The loud wind never reach'd the The bodies of the

ship,

Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groan'd, they stirr'd, 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 steer'd, the ship
moved on;

Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,

Sure my kind saint took pity on me, Where they were wont to do;
And I bless'd 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.

To Mary Queen the praise be given!" I fear thee, ancient Mariner!"

ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;

But not by the souls of the men,

nor by dæmons of

earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the

For when it dawn'd-they dropp'd guardian saint.

their arms,

My lips were wet, my throat was cold, And cluster'd round the mast;

My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,

And still my body drank.

Sweet sounds rose slowly through

their mouths,

And from their bodies pass'd.

I moved, and could not feel my Around, around, flew each sweet

limbs :

I was so light-almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessed ghost.

sound,

Then darted to the Sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mix'd, now one by one.

73

The lonesome spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as far as the line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.

Sometimes, a-drooping from the sky,
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seem'd to fill the sea and
air,

With their sweet jargoning!

PART VI.

FIRST VOICE.

BUT tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing-
What makes that ship drive on so
fast?

And now 't was like all instruments, What is the OCEAN doing?

Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the Heavens be mute.

SECOND VOICE.

Still as a slave before his lord,
The OCEAN hath no blast;

His great bright eye most silently

It ceased; yet still the sails made on Up to the Moon is cast

A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.

That to the sleeping woods all night See, brother, see! how graciously
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 fix'd her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion-
Backwards and forwards half
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.

her

"Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the
man?

heavy for the an- By him who died on cross,

cient Mariner

She looketh down on him.

I view'd the ocean green,
And look'd far forth, yet little saw

hath been accord- With his cruel bow he laid full low Of what had else been seen

ed to the Polar

Spirit, who returneth southward.

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

The harbor-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the moon.

He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrive 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 countrée.

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 near'd: I heard them
talk,

Why this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and
fair,

The rock shone bright, the kirk no That signal made but now?"

less

That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steep'd in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent
light,

The angelic spir- Till, rising from the same,

its leave the

dead bodies,

And appear in their own forms of light.

The Hermit of the Wood,

Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit Approacheth the
said-
ship with wonder.

"And they answer not our cheer!
The planks look warp'd! and see
those sails,

How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,

Full many shapes that shadows were, Unless perchance it were
In crimson colors came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turn'd my eyes upon the deck-
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

No voice did they impart-
No voice; but oh! the silence sank It reach'd the ship, it split the bay;

The ship suddenly sinketh.

Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful The ancient Ma

sound,

Which sky and ocean smote,

My head was turn'd perforce away, Like one that hath been seven days

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!

drown'd

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.

riner is saved in

the Pilot's boat.

The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrive him; and the penance of life falls on him.

And ever and anon throughout his future life an eth him to travel from land to land,

agony constrain

I moved my lips-the Pilot shriek'd, But in the garden-bower the bride
And fell down in a fit;

The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And pray'd where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,

And bride-maids 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:

Laugh'd loud and long, and all the So lonely 'twas, that God himself

while

With a woful agony,

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.

Which forced me to begin my tale; He prayeth best, who loveth best

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.

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
Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been
stunn'd,

What loud uproar bursts from that And is of sense forlorn,

door!

The wedding-guests are there:

A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.

And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.

Christabel.

PREFACE.*

at either of the former periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But THE first part of the following poem was written in for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose seven, at Stowey in the county of Somerset. The of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imisecond part, after my return from Germany, in the year one thousand eight hundred, at Keswick, Cumberland. Since the latter date, my poetic powers have been, till very lately, in a state of suspended animation. But as, in my very first conception of the tale, I had the whole present to my mind, with the wholeness, no less than with the loveliness of a vision, I trust that I shall yet be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to come.

It is probable, that if the poem had been finished

*To the edition of 1816.

tation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me from the