Approacheth

"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?'

the ship with "Strange, by my faith!' the hermit said— 'And they answered not our cheer !

wonder.

The planks look 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 ;

The ship sud-Under the water it rumbled on,
denly sinketh.
Still louder and more dread;

It reached the ship, it split the bay—
The ship went down like lead.

The Ancient "Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,

Mariner is

saved in the Which sky and ocean smote,

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.

"Upon the whirl where sank the ship

The boat span 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..

The Ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve him and the penance of life falls on him.

"Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns ;

And till my ghastly tale is told

This heart within me burns.

And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land tu land.

And to teach

by his own ex

"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 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

So lonely 't was, 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

ample, love To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!

and reverence

to all things He prayeth well who loveth well Both man and bird and beast.

that God made and loveth.

"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.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERidge.

Dejection:

AN ODE.

Late, late yestreen, I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms;

And I fear, I fear, my master dear,

We shall have a deadly storm.

Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.

I.

LL! if the bard was weather-wise, who made

WELL

The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence, This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence

Unroused by winds that ply a busier trade

Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy flakes, Or the dull sobbing draught, that moans and rakes Upon the strings of this Æolian lute, Which better far were mute. For lo! the new moon winter-bright ! And overspread with phantom light, (With swimming phantom light o'erspread, But rimmed and circled by a silver thread), I see the old moon in her lap, foretelling The coming on of rain and squally blast.

And O! that even now the gust were swelling,

And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast! Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed, And sent my soul abroad,

Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,

Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!

II.

A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear-

O lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle wooed,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green ;
And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;

Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen :
Yon crescent moon, as fixed as if it grew

In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;

I see them all so excellently fair,—

I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!

My genial spirits fail,

III.

And what can these avail

To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?

It were a vain endeavor,

Though I should gaze forever

On that green light that lingers in the west :
I may not hope from outward forms to win

The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.