854

With sloping masts and dipping prow

As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head -

The ship drove fast; loud roared the
blast,

And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold;

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy cliffs The land of
Did send a dismal sheen;

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around;

It cracked and growled, and roared and
howled,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross
Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.

"The ship was cheered, the harbor The ice did split with a thunder-fit ;

cleared;

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the light-house top.

The Mari- The sun came up upon the left,

ner tells

how the

ship sailed

Out of the sea came he;

The helmsman steered us through !

ice and of fearful

sounds, where no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great
sea-bird,
called the
Albatross,
came

through
the snow.
fog, and was
received
with great
joy and hos-
pitality.

And a good south wind sprung up be- And to the

hind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariners' hollo!

southward. And he shone bright, and on the right
| In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

with a good Went down into the sea;

wind and

fair weather,

It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke

white,

Albatross proveth a

bird of good
omen, and
followeth
the ship as it
returned
northward
through fog
and floating

ice.

Glimmered the white moonshine."
"God save thee, Ancient Mariner !
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!- hospitably
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,

The Ancient Mariner inkilleth the

pious bird of

good omen.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, Had I from old and young!
That made the breeze to blow!

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt It moved and moved, and took at last

No twilight The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out; But, or ever a prayer had gusht,

within the

courts of the At one stride comes the dark;

Sun.

of the Moon,

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

At the rising 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;

one after another,

From the sails the dew did drip-
Till clombe above the eastern bar,
The horned Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

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,

And the dead were at my feet.
Lay like a load on my weary eye,

cient Mariner assureth hiin of his bodily life, and pro ceedeth to relate his horrible penance.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm;

and envieth that they should live. and so many lie dead.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs, But the
Nor rot nor reek did they :

curse liveth for him in the eye of

men.

The look with which they looked on me the dead
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell

One after one, by the star-dogged Moon, A spirit from on high;
Too quick for groan or sigh,

But oh! more horrible than that

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, Is a curse in a dead man's eye!
And cursed me with his eye.

his ship- Four times fifty living men
mates drop
down dead. (And I heard nor sigh nor groan),
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that

curse,

And yet I could not die.

Her beams bemccked the sultry main, And to and fro, and in and out,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
The wan stars danced between.

But where the ship's huge shadow lay
The charmed water burnt alway,

A still and awful red.

And when they reared, the elfish light The thick black cloud was cleft, and

I dreamt that they were filled with dew; The Body and I pulled at one rope,

dience to the

angelic troop, but

still requir eth ven

geance.

The Polar Spirit's fellow-da

mons, the

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

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.'

Backwards and forwards half her length I woke, and we were sailing on

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;

invisible in But ere my living life returned,

habitants of

the element, I heard, and in my soul discerned take part in Two voices in the air.

his wrong;

and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance

long and

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

heavy for With his cruel bow he laid full low
the Ancient

Marinerhath The harmless Albatross !

been accord.

ed to the

Polar Spirit,

who return The Spirit who bideth by himself

eth south

ward.

In the land of mist and snow,

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

As in a gentle weather;

cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure.

The supernatural mo.

tion is retarded; the

'T was night, calm night-the moon Mariner

awakes, and his penance begins

anew.

The curse b finally expi

ated.