A flash of joy.

And horror follows: for can it be a ship, that comes onward without wind or tide?

Too quick for groan or sigh
Each turn'd 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 dropp'd down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,-
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it pass'd me by,
Like the whizz of my CROSS-BOW!

PART IV.

One after another,

His shipmates drop down dead;

But LIFE-INDEATH begins her work on the aucient Mariner.

It seemeth him

but the skeleton of a ship.

And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun.

The spectre-woman and her death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton-ship. Like vessel, like crew!

The weddingguest feareth that a spirit is talking

(Heaven's Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd With broad and burning face.

As is the ribb'd sea-sand.'

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.

I look'd upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I look'd upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

in the courts of the sun.

the moon,

At one stride comes the Dark;

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

At the rising of We listen'd and look'd sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seem'd to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleam'd
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.

And the dead were at my feet.

But the ancient

Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his

horrible penance.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm,

And envieth that they should live,

and so many lie dead.

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still soJourn, yet still

But oh more horrible than that

Is a curse in a dead man's eye!

And soon I heard a roaring wind: It did not come anear;

curse,

And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky,
And no where did abide :

Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside-

Sometimes, a-dropping 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!

And now 't was 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 fix'd her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion--

PART VI.

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:

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

And ever and

I moved my lips-the Pilot shriek'd,
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,

Laugh'd 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 stepp'd forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

«O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!. The Hermit cross'd his brow.

"

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,
"T is 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,

--What manner of man art thou?"

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd

With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

anon throughout That agony returns:

his future life au agony constraineth him to travel from land to land,

And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.

I like night, from land to land;
pass,
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.

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
Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.

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

PREFACE.'

THE first part of the following poem was written in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety seven, at Stowey in the county of Somerset, The second 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 at either of the former periods, or if even the first and

To the edition of 1816.

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 for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imitation 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