1. 2.
A blessèd lot hath he, who having passed
His youth and early manhood in the stir
And turmoil of the world, retreats at length,
With cares that move, not agitate the heart,
To the same dwelling where his father dwelt;
And haply views his tottering little ones
Embrace those agèd knees and climb that lap,
On which first kneeling his own infancy
Lisped its brief prayer. Such, O my earliest Friend!
10 Thy lot, and such thy brothers too enjoy.
At distance did ye climb life’s upland road,
Yet cheered and cheering: now fraternal love
Hath drawn you to one centre. Be your days
Holy, and blest and blessing may ye live!
To me the Eternal Wisdom hath dispensed
A different fortune and more different mind –
Me from the spot where first I sprang to light
Too soon transplanted, ere my soul had fixed
Its first domestic loves; and hence through life
20 Chasing chance-started friendships. A brief while
Some have preserved me from life’s pelting ills;
But, like a tree with leaves of feeble stem,
If the clouds lasted, and a sudden breeze
Ruffled the boughs, they on my head at once
Dropped the collected shower; and some most false,
False and fair foliaged as the Manchineel,
Have tempted me to slumber in their shade
E’en mid the storm; then breathing subtlest damps,
Mixed their own venom with the rain from Heaven,
30 That I woke poisoned! But, all praise to Him
Who gives us all things, more have yielded me
Permanent shelter; and beside one friend,
Beneath the impervious covert of one oak,
I’ve raised a lowly shed, and know the names
Of husband and of father; not unhearing
Of that divine and nightly-whispering voice,
Which from my childhood to maturer years
Spake to me of predestinated wreaths,
Bright with no fading colours!
Yet at times
40 My soul is sad, that I have roamed through life
Still most a stranger, most with naked heart
At mine own home and birth-place: chiefly then,
When I remember thee, my earliest friend!
Thee, who didst watch my boyhood and my youth;
Didst trace my wanderings with a father’s eye;
And boding evil yet still hoping good,
Rebuked each fault, and over all my woes
Sorrowed in silence! He who counts along
The beatings of the solitary heart,
50 That being knows, how I have loved thee ever,
Loved as a brother, as a son revered thee!
Oh! ’tis to me an ever new delight,
To talk of thee and thine: or when the blast
Of the shrill winter, rattling our rude sash,
Endears the cleanly hearth and social bowl;
Or when as now, on some delicious eve,
We in our sweet sequestered orchard-plot
Sit on the tree crooked earth-ward; whose old boughs,
That hang above us in an arborous roof,
60 Stirred by the faint gale of departing May,
Send their loose blossoms slanting o’er our heads!
Nor dost not thou sometimes recall those hours,
When with the joy of hope thou gav’st thine ear
To my wild firstling-lays. Since then my song
Hath sounded deeper notes, such as beseem
Or that sad wisdom folly leaves behind,
Or such as, tuned to these tumultuous times,
Cope with the tempest’s swell!
These various strains,
Which I have framed in many a various mood,
70 Accept, my brother! and (for some perchance
Will strike discordant on thy milder mind)
If aught of error or intemperate truth
Should meet thine ear, think thou that riper age
Will calm it down, and let thy love forgive it!
On the Christening of a Friend’s Child
This day among the faithful plac’d
And fed with fontal manna;
O with maternal title grac’d
Dear Anna’s dearest Anna!
While others wish thee wise and fair,
A maid of spotless fame,
I’ll breathe this more compendious prayer –
May’st thou deserve thy name!
Thy mother’s name, a potent spell,
10 That bids the Virtues hie
From mystic grove and living cell
Confest to Fancy’s eye;
Meek QUIETNESS without offence;
CONTENT in homespun kirtle;
TRUE LOVE; and True Love’s Innocence,
White Blossom of the Myrtle!
Associates of thy name, sweet Child!
These Virtues may’st thou win;
With face as eloquently mild
20 To say, they lodge within.
So, when her tale of days all flown,
Thy Mother shall be miss’d here;
When Heaven at length shall claim its own,
And Angels snatch their Sister;
Some hoary-headed Friend, perchance,
May gaze with stifled breath;
And oft, in momentary trance,
Forget the waste of death.
Ev’n thus a lovely rose I view’d
30 In summer-swelling Pride;
Nor mark’d the bud, that green and rude
Peep’d at the Rose’s side.
It chanc’d, I pass’d again that way
In Autumn’s latest hour,
And wond’ring saw the self-same spray
Rich with the self-same flower –
Ah fond deceit! the rude green Bud
Alike in shape, place, name,
Had bloom’d, where bloom’d its parent stud,
40 Another and the same!
Inscription by the Rev. W. L. Bowles
IN NETHER STOWEY CHURCH
TRANSLATION
Depart in joy from this world’s noise and strife
To the deep quiet of celestial life!
Depart! – Affection’s self reproves the tear
Which falls, O honour’d Parent! on thy bier; –
Yet Nature will be heard, the heart will swell,
And the voice tremble with a last Farewell!
This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison
In the June of 1797, some long-expected Friends paid a visit to the author’s cottage; and on the morning of their arrival, he met with an accident, which disabled him from walking during the whole time of their stay. One evening, when they had left him for a few hours, he composed the following lines in the garden-bower.
Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,
This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost
Beauties and feelings, such as would have been
Most sweet to my remembrance even when age
Had dimmed mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,
Friends, whom I never more may meet again,
On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,
Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,
To that still roaring dell, of which I told;
10 The roaring dell, o’erwooded, narrow, deep,
And only speckled by the mid-day sun;
Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock
Flings arching like a bridge; – that branchless ash,
Unsunned and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves
Ne’er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,
Fanned by the water-fall! and there my friends
Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,
That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)
Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge
20 Of the blue clay-stone.
Now, my friends emerge
Beneath the wide wide Heaven – and view again
The many-steepled tract magnificent
Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,
With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up
The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles
Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on
In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,
My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined
And hungered after Nature, many a year,
30 In the great City pent, winning thy way
With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain
And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink
Behind the western ridge, thou glorious sun!
Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,
Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!
Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!
And kindle, thou blue ocean! So my Friend
Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,
Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round
40 On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem
Less gross than bodily; and of such hues
As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes
Spirits perceive his presence.
A delight
Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad
As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,
This little lime-tree bower, have I not marked
Much that has soothed me. Pale beneath the blaze
Hung the transparent foliage; and I watched
Some broad and sunny leaf, and loved to see
50 The shadow of the leaf and stem above
Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree
Was richly tinged, and a deep radiance lay
Full on the ancient ivy which usurps
Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass
Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue
Through the late twilight: and though now the bat
Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,
Yet still the solitary humble bee
Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know
60 That Nature ne’er deserts the wise and pure;
No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,
No waste so vacant, but may well employ
Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart
Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes
’Tis well to be bereft of promised good,
That we may lift the Soul, and contemplate
With lively joy the joys we cannot share.
My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook
Beat its straight path along the dusky air
70 Homewards, I blest it! deeming, its black wing
(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)
Had crossed the mighty orb’s dilated glory,
While thou stood’st gazing; or when all was still,
Flew creeking o’er thy head, and had a charm
For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom
No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.
The Foster-Mother’s Tale
A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT
FOSTER-MOTHER
I never saw the man whom you describe.
MARIA
’Tis strange, he spake of you familiarly,
As mine and Albert’s common Foster-Mother.
FOSTER-MOTHER
Now blessings on the man, whoe’er he be,
That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady!
As often as I think of those dear times,
When you two little ones would stand at eve
On each side of my chair, and make me learn
All you had learnt in the day, and how to talk
10 In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you –
’Tis more like heaven to come than what has been.
MARIA
O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me
Troubled with wilder fancies, than the Moon
Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,
Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye
She gazes idly – But that entrance, Mother!
FOSTER-MOTHER
Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!
MARIA
No one.
FOSTER-MOTHER
My husband’s father told it me,
Poor old Leoni: Angels, rest his soul!
20 He was a woodman, and could fell, and saw,
With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam
Which props the hanging-wall of the old chapel?
Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree,
He found a baby, wrapt in mosses lined
With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool
As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home,
And reared him at the then Lord Valez’ cost;
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy –
A pretty boy, but most unteachable –
30 And never learnt a prayer nor told a bead;
But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,
And whistled, as he were a bird himself!
And all the autumn ’twas his only play
To gather seeds of wild-flowers, and to plant them
With earth and water on the stumps of trees.
A Friar, who oft cull’d simples in the wood,
A grey-haired man – he loved this little boy:
The boy loved him – and, when the Friar taught him,
He soon could write with the pen; and from that time
40 Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.
So he became a very learnèd youth.
But oh! poor wretch! he read, and read, and read,
Till his brain turned – and ere his twentieth year,
He had unlawful thoughts of many things:
And though he prayed, he never loved to pray
With holy men, or in a holy place;
But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,
The late Lord Valez ne’er was wearied with him:
And once, as by the north side of the chapel
50 They stood together, chained in deep discourse,
The earth heaved under them with such a groan,
That the wall tottered, and had well nigh fallen
Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;
A fever seized him, and he made confession
Of all the heretical and lawless talk
Which brought this judgment. So the youth was seized
And cast into that hole. My husband’s father
Sobbed like a child – it almost broke his heart;
And once, as he was working in the cellar,
60 He hear’d a voice distinctly; ’twas the youth’s,
Who sung a doleful song about green fields,
How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah
To hunt for food, and be a naked man,
And wander up and down at liberty.
He always doted on the youth, and now
His love grew desperate; and defying death,
He made that cunning entrance I described;
And the young man escaped.
MARIA
’Tis a sweet tale:
Such as would lull a listening child to sleep,
70 His rosy face besoiled with unwiped tears.
And what became of him?
FOSTER-MOTHER
He went on ship-board,
With those bold voyagers who made discovery
Of golden lands. Leoni’s youngest brother
Went likewise; and when he returned to Spain,
He told Leoni, that the poor mad youth,
Soon after they arrived in that new world,
In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat,
And, all alone, set sail by silent moonlight
Up a great river, great as any sea,
80 And ne’er was heard of more; but ’tis supposed,
He lived and died among the savage men.
The Dungeon
And this place our forefathers made for man!
This is the process of our love and wisdom,
To each poor brother who offends against us –
Most innocent, perhaps – and what if guilty?
Is this the only cure? Merciful God?
Each pore and natural outlet shrivell’d up
By ignorance and parching poverty,
His energies roll back upon his heart,
And stagnate and corrupt; till changed to poison,
10 They break out on him, like a loathsome plague-spot;
Then we call in our pamper’d mountebanks –
And this is their best cure! uncomforted
And friendless solitude, groaning and tears,
And savage faces, at the clanking hour,
Seen through the steams and vapour of his dungeon,
By the lamp’s dismal twilight! So he lies
Circled with evil, till his very soul
Unmoulds its essence, hopelessly deformed
By sights of ever more deformity!
20 With other ministrations thou, O nature!
Healest thy wandering and distempered child:
Thou pourest on him thy soft influences,
Thy sunny hues, fair forms, and breathing sweets,
Thy melodies of woods, and winds, and waters,
Till he relent, and can no more endure
To be a jarring and a dissonant thing,
Amid this general dance and minstrelsy;
But, bursting into tears, wins back his way,
His angry spirit healed and harmonized
30 By the benignant touch of love and beauty.
SONNETS ATTEMPTED IN THE
MANNER OF CONTEMPORARY
WRITERS
Sonnet I
Pensive at eve, on the hard world I mused,
And my poor heart was sad; so at the MOON
I gazed, and sighed, and sighed; for ah how soon
Eve saddens into night! mine eyes perused
With tearful vacancy the dampy grass
That wept and glitter’d in the paly ray:
And I did pause me, on my lonely way
And mused me, on the wretched ones that pass
O’er the bleak heath of sorrow. But alas!
10 Most of myself I thought! when it befel,
That the soothe spirit of the breezy wood
Breath’d in mine ear: ‘All this is very well,
But much of ONE thing, is for NO thing good.’
Oh my poor heart’s INEXPLICABLE SWELL!
Sonnet II
Oh I do love thee, meek SIMPLICITY!
For of thy lays the lulling simpleness
Goes to my heart, and soothes each small distress,
Distress tho’ small, yet haply great to me.
’Tis true on Lady Fortune’s gentlest pad
I amble on; and yet I know not why
So sad I am! but should a friend and I
Frown, pout and part, then I am very sad.
And then with sonnets and with sympathy
10 My dreamy bosom’s mystic woes I pall;
Now of my false friend plaining plaintively,
Now raving at mankind in general;
But whether sad or fierce, ’tis simple all,
All very simple, meek SIMPLICITY!
Sonnet III
And this reft house is that, the which he built,
Lamented Jack! and here his malt he pil’d,
Cautious in vain! these rats, that squeak so wild,
Squeak not unconscious of their father’s guilt.
Did he not see her gleaming thro’ the glade!
Belike ’twas she, the maiden all forlorn.
What tho’ she milk no cow with crumpled horn,
Yet, aye she haunts the dale where erst she stray’d:
And aye, beside her stalks her amorous knight!
10 Still on his thighs their wonted brogues are worn,
And thro’ those brogues, still tatter’d and betorn,
His hindward charms gleam an unearthly white.
Ah! thus thro’ broken clouds at night’s high Noon
Peeps in fair fragments forth the full-orb’d harvest-moon!
* * *
Parliamentary Oscillators
Almost awake? Why, what is this, and whence,
O ye right loyal men, all undefilèd?
Sure, ’tis not possible that Common Sense,
Has hitch’d her pullies to each heavy eye-lid?
Yet wherefore else that start, which discomposes
The drowsy waters lingering in your eye?
And are you really able to descry
That precipice three yards beyond your noses?
Yet flatter you I cannot, that your wit
10 Is much improved by this long loyal dosing;
And I admire, no more than Mr PITT,
Your jumps and starts of patriotic prosing –
Now cluttering to the Treasury Cluck, like chicken,
Now with small beaks the ravenous Bill opposing;
With serpent-tongue now stinging, and now licking,
Now semi-sibilant, now smoothly glozing –
Now having faith implicit that he can’t err,
Hoping his hopes, alarm’d with his alarms;
And now believing him a sly inchanter,
20 Yet still afraid to break his brittle charms,
Lest some mad Devil suddenly unhamp’ring,
Slap-dash! the imp should fly off with the steeple,
On revolutionary broom-stick scampering. –
O ye soft-headed and soft-hearted people,
If you can stay so long from slumber free,
My muse shall make an effort to salute ’e:
For lo! a very dainty simile
Flash’d sudden through my brain, and ’twill just suit ’e!
You know that water-fowl that cries, Quack! quack!?
30 Full often have I seen a waggish crew
Fasten the Bird of Wisdom on its back,
The ivy-haunting bird, that cries, Tu-whoo!
Both plunged together in the deep mill-stream,
(Mill-stream, or farm-yard pond, or mountain-lake)
Shrill, as a Church and Constitution scream,
TU-WHOO! quoth BROAD-FACE, and down dives the Drake!
The green-neck’d Drake once more pops up to view,
Stares round, cries Quack! and makes an angry pother;
Then shriller screams the bird with eye-lids blue,
40 The broad-faced bird! and deeper dives the other.
Ye quacking Statesmen! ’tis even so with you –
One peasecod is not liker to another.
Even so on Loyalty’s Decoy-pond, each
Pops up his head, as fir’d with British blood,
Hears once again the Ministerial screech,
And once more seeks the bottom’s blackest mud!
The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (1798)
IN SEVEN PARTS
ARGUMENT
How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by Storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.
I
It is an ancyent Marinere,
And he stoppeth one of three:
‘By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye
Now wherefore stoppest me?
The Bridegroom’s doors are open’d wide
And I am next of kin;
The Guests are met, the Feast is set, –
May’st hear the merry din.’
But still he holds the wedding-guest –
10 There was a Ship, quoth he –
‘Nay, if thou’st got a laughsome tale,
Marinere! come with me.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
Quoth he, there was a Ship –
‘Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard Loon!
Or my Staff shall make thee skip.’
He holds him with his glittering eye –
The wedding-guest stood still
And listens like a three year’s child;
20 The Marinere hath his will.
The wedding-guest sate on a stone,
He cannot chuse but hear:
And thus spake on that ancyent man,
The bright-eyed Marinere.
The Ship was cheer’d, the Harbour clear’d –
Merrily did we drop
Below the Kirk, below the Hill,
Below the Light-house top.
The Sun came up upon the left,
30 Out of the Sea came he:
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the Sea.
Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon –
The wedding-guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
The Bride hath pac’d into the Hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
40 The merry Minstralsy.
The wedding-guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot chuse but hear:
And thus spake on that ancyent Man,
The bright-eyed Marinere.
Listen, Stranger! Storm and Wind,
A Wind and Tempest strong!
For days and weeks it play’d us freaks –
Like Chaff we drove along.
Listen, Stranger! Mist and Snow,
50 And it grew wond’rous cauld:
And Ice mast-high came floating by
As green as Emerauld.
And thro’ the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen;
Ne shapes of men ne beasts we ken –
The Ice was all between.
The Ice was here, the Ice was there,
The Ice was all around:
It crack’d and growl’d, and roar’d and howl’d –
60 Like noises of a swound.
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the Fog it came;
And an it were a Christian Soul,
We hail’d it in God’s name.
The Marineres gave it biscuit-worms,
And round and round it flew:
The Ice did split with a Thunder-fit;
The Helmsman steer’d us thro’.
And a good south wind sprung up behind,
70 The Albatross did follow;
And every day for food or play
Came to the Marinere’s hollo!
In mist or cloud on mast or shroud
It perch’d for vespers nine,
Whiles all the night thro’ fog smoke-white
Glimmer’d the white moon-shine.
‘God save thee, ancyent Marinere!
From the fiends that plague thee thus –
Why look’st thou so?’ – with my cross bow
80 I shot the Albatross.
II
The Sun came up upon the right,
Out of the Sea came he;
And broad as a weft upon the left
Went down into the Sea.
And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet Bird did follow
Ne any day for food or play
Came to the Marinere’s hollo!
And I had done an hellish thing
90 And it would work ’em woe;
For all averr’d, I had kill’d the Bird
That made the Breeze to blow.
Ne dim ne red, like God’s own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averr’d, I had kill’d the Bird
That brought the fog and mist.
’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay
That bring the fog and mist.
The breezes blew, the white foam flew,
100 The furrow follow’d 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,
110 No bigger than the moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, ne breath ne motion,
As idle as a painted Ship
Upon a painted Ocean.
Water, water, every where
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water every where,
Ne any drop to drink.
The very deeps did rot: O Christ!
120 That ever this should be!
Yea, slimly things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy Sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
The Death-fires danc’d at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green and blue and white.
And some in dreams assurèd were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so:
Nine fathom deep he had follow’d us
130 From the Land of Mist and Snow.
And every tongue thro’ utter drouth
Was wither’d at the root;
We could not speak no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Ah wel-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young;
Instead of the Cross the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
III
I saw a something in the Sky
140 No bigger than my fist;
At first it seem’d a little speck
And then it seem’d a mist:
It mov’d and mov’d, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.
A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it ner’d and ner’d;
And, an it dodg’d a water-sprite,
It plung’d and tack’d and veer’d.
With throat unslack’d, with black lips bak’d
150 Ne could we laugh, ne wail:
Then while thro’ drouth all dumb they stood
I bit my arm and suck’d the blood
And cry’d, A sail! a sail!
With throat unslack’d, with black lips bak’d
Agape they hear’d me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin
And all at once their breath drew in
As they were drinking all.
She doth not tack from side to side –
160 Hither to work us weal
Withouten wind, withouten tide
She steddies 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 strait the Sun was fleck’d with bars
170 (Heaven’s mother send us grace)
As if thro’ a dungeon grate he peer’d
With broad and burning face.
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she neres and neres!
Are those her Sails that glance in the Sun
Like restless gossameres?
Are those her naked ribs, which fleck’d
The sun that did behind them peer?
And are those two all, all the crew,
180 That woman and her fleshless Pheere?
His bones were black with many a crack,
All black and bare, I ween;
Jet-black and bare, save where with rust
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust
They’re patch’d with purple and green.
Her lips are red, her looks are free,
Her locks are yellow as gold:
Her skin is as white as leprosy,
And she is far liker Death than he;
190 Her flesh makes the still air cold.
The naked Hulk alongside came
And the Twain were playing dice;
‘The Game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!’
Quoth she, and whistled thrice.
A gust of wind sterte up behind
And whistled thro’ his bones;
Thro’ the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth
Half-whistles and half-groans.
With never a whisper in the Sea
200 Oft darts the Spectre-ship;
While clombe above the Eastern bar
The hornèd Moon, with one bright Star
Almost atween the tips.
One after one by the hornèd Moon
(Listen, O Stranger! to me)
Each turn’d his face with a ghastly pang
And curs’d me with his ee.
Four times fifty living men,
With never a sigh or groan.
210 With heavy thump, a lifeless lump
They dropp’d down one by one.
Their souls did from their bodies fly, –
They fled to bliss or woe;
And every soul it pass’d me by,
Like the whiz of my Cross-bow.
IV
‘I fear thee, ancyent Marinere!
I fear thy skinny hand;
And thou art long and lank and brown
As is the ribb’d Sea-sand.
220 I fear thee and thy glittering eye
And thy skinny hand so brown – ’
Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest!
This body dropt not down.
Alone, alone, all all alone
Alone on the wide wide Sea;
And Christ would take no pity on
My soul in agony.
The many men so beautiful,
And they all dead die lie!
230 And a million million slimy things
Liv’d on – and so did I.
I look’d upon the rotting Sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I look’d upon the eldritch deck,
And there the dead men lay.
I look’d to Heaven, and try’d to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came and made
My heart as dry as dust.
240 I clos’d my lids and kept them close,
Till 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,
Ne rot, ne reek did they;
The look with which they look’d on me,
Had never pass’d away.
An orphan’s curse would drag to Hell
250 A spirit from on high:
But O! more horrible than that
Is the 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 no where did abide:
Softly she was going up
And a star or two beside –
Her beams bemock’d the sultry main
260 Like morning frosts yspread;
But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
The charmèd water burnt alway
A still and awful red.
Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watch’d the water-snakes:
They mov’d in tracks of shining white;
And when they rear’d, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
270 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 gusht from my heart,
And I bless’d them unaware!
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I bless’d them unaware.
280 The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
V
O sleep, it is a gentle thing
Belov’d from pole to pole!
To Mary-queen the praise be yeven
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven
That slid into my soul.
The silly buckets on the deck
290 That had so long remain’d,
I dreamt that they were fill’d with dew
And when I awoke it rain’d.
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 mov’d and could not feel my limbs,
I was so light, almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
300 And was a blessed Ghost.
The roaring wind! it roar’d far off,
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails
That were so thin and sere.
The upper air bursts into life,
And a hundred fire-flags sheen
To and fro they are hurried about;
And to and fro, and in and out
The stars dance on between.
310 The coming wind doth roar more loud;
The sails do sigh, like sedge:
The rain pours down from one black cloud
And the Moon is at its edge.
Hark! hark! the thick black cloud is cleft,
And the Moon is at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning falls with never a jag
A river steep and wide.
The strong wind reach’d the ship: it roar’d
320 And dropp’d down, like a stone!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.
They groan’d, they stirr’d, they all uprose,
Ne spake, ne mov’d their eyes:
It had been strange, even in a dream
To have seen those dead men rise.
The helmsman steerd, the ship mov’d on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
The Marineres all ’gan work the ropes,
330 Where they were wont to do:
They rais’d their limbs like lifeless tools –
We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me knee to knee:
The body and I pull’d at one rope,
But he said nought to me –
And I quak’d to think of my own voice
How frightful it would be!
The day-light dawn’d – they dropp’d their arms,
340 And cluster’d round the mast:
Sweet sounds rose slowly thro’ their mouths
And from their bodies pass’d.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the sun:
Slowly the sounds came back again
Now mix’d, now one by one.
Sometimes a dropping from the sky
I heard the Lavrock sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are
350 How they seem’d 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 ceas’d: yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
360 That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Listen, O listen, thou Wedding-guest!
‘Marinere! thou hast thy will:
For that, which comes out of thine eye, doth make
My body and soul to be still.’
Never sadder tale was told
To a man of woman born:
Sadder and wiser thou wedding-guest!
Thou’lt rise to-morrow morn.
370 Never sadder tale was heard
By a man of woman born:
The Marineres all return’d to work
As silent as beforne.
The Marineres all ’gan pull the ropes,
But look at me they n’old:
Thought I, I am as thin as air –
They cannot me behold.
Till noon we silently sail’d on
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
380 Slowly and smoothly went the ship
Mov’d 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:
390 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 into a swound.
How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
400 But ere my living life return’d,
I heard and in my soul discern’d
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 lay’d full low
The harmless Albatross.
‘The spirit who ’bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He lov’d the bird that lov’d the man
410 Who shot him with his bow.’
The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he the man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.
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,
420 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
Withouten wave or wind?’
Second voice
‘The air is cut away before,
430 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 Marinere’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,
440 For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fix’d on me their stony eyes
That in the moon did glitter.
The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never pass’d away:
I could not draw my een from theirs
Ne turn them up to pray.
And in its time the spell was snapt,
And I could move my een:
I look’d far-forth, but little saw
450 Of what might else be seen.
Like one, that on a lonely road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turn’d round, walks on
And turns no more his head:
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
But soon there breath’d a wind on me,
Ne sound ne motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea
460 In ripple or in shade.
It rais’d my hair, it fann’d 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 sail’d softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze –
On me alone it blew.
O dream of joy! is this indeed
470 The light-house top I see?
Is this the Hill? Is this the Kirk?
Is this mine own countrèe?
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,
480 And the shadow of the moon.
The moonlight bay was white all o’er,
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
Like as of torches came.
A little distance from the prow
Those dark-red shadows were;
But soon I saw that my own flesh
Was red as in a glare.
I turn’d my head in fear and dread,
490 And by the holy rood,
The bodies had advanc’d, and now
Before the mast they stood.
They lifted up their stiff right arms,
They held them strait and tight;
And each right-arm burnt like a torch,
A torch that’s borne upright.
Their stony eye-balls glitter’d on
In the red and smoky light.
I pray’d and turn’d my head away
500 Forth looking as before.
There was no breeze upon the bay,
No wave against the shore.
The rock shone bright, the kirk no less
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steep’d in silentness
The steady weathercock.
And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
510 In crimson colours came.
A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turn’d my eyes upon the deck –
O 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 wav’d his hand:
520 It was a heavenly sight:
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light:
This seraph-band, each wav’d his hand,
No voice did they impart –
No voice; but O! the silence sank,
Like music on my heart.
Eftsones I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the pilot’s cheer:
My head was turn’d perforce away
530 And I saw a boat appear.
Then vanish’d all the lovely lights;
The bodies rose anew:
With silent pace, each to his place,
Came back the ghastly crew.
The wind, that shade nor motion made,
On me alone it blew.
The pilot, and the pilot’s boy
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy,
540 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.
VII
This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the Sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
550 He loves to talk with Marineres
That come from a far Contrèe.
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 ne’rd: I heard them talk,
‘Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair
That signal made but now?’
560 ‘Strange, by my faith!’ the Hermit said –
‘And they answer’d 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
Unless perchance it were
‘The 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
570 That eats the she-wolf’s young.’
‘Dear Lord! it has a fiendish look – ’
(The Pilot made reply)
‘I am a-fear’d.’ – ‘Push on, push on!’
Said the Hermit cheerily.
The Boat came closer to the Ship,
But I ne spake ne stirr’d!
The Boat came close beneath the Ship,
And strait a sound was heard!
Under the water it rumbled on,
580 Still louder and more dread:
It reach’d the Ship, it split the bay;
The Ship went down like lead.
Stunn’d by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote:
Like one that hath been seven days 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,
590 The boat spun round and round:
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.
I mov’d my lips: the Pilot shriek’d
And fell down in a fit.
The Holy Hermit rais’d 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
600 His eyes went to and fro,
‘Ha! ha!’ quoth he – ‘full plain I see,
The devil knows how to row.’
And now all in mine own Countrèe
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 –
‘Say quick,’ quoth he, ‘I bid thee say
610 What manner man art thou?’
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d
With a woeful agony,
Which forc’d me to begin my tale
And then it left me free.
Since then at an uncertain hour,
Now oftimes and now fewer,
That anguish comes and makes me tell
My ghastly aventure.
I pass, like night, from land to land;
620 I have strange power of speech;
The 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.
630 O Wedding-guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely ’twas, that God himself
Scarce seemèd 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,
640 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,
650 He made and loveth all.
The Marinere, 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
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834)
IN SEVEN PARTS
Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum univer-sitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit, et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera? Quid agunt? quæ loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabulaâ, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernæ vitæ minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus.
T. BURNET, Archœol. Phil., p. 68
PART I
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
An ancient Mariner
meeteth three
gallants bidden to a
wedding-feast, and
detaineth one.
‘The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
10 ‘There was a ship,’ quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
He holds him with his glittering eye –
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.
The wedding-guest
is spell-bound by
the eye of the old
sea-faring man, and
constrained to hear his tale.
The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
20 The bright-eyed Mariner.
The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the light-house top.
The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.
The Mariner tells
how the ship sailed
southward with a
good wind and fair
weather, till it
reached the line.
Higher and higher every day,
30 Till over the mast at noon –
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.
The wedding-guest
heareth the bridal
music; but the
Mariner continueth his tale.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
40 The bright-eyed Mariner.
And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
The ship drawn by
a storm toward the
south pole.
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,
50 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 clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken –
The ice was all between.
The land of ice, and
of fearful sounds
where no living
thing was to be
seen.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
60 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.
Till a great sea-bird,
called the Albatross,
came through the
snow-fog, and was
received with great
joy and hospitality.
It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
70 The helmsman steered us through!
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And ever day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!
And lo! the
Albatross proveth a
bird of good omen,
and followeth the
ship as it returned
northward through
fog and floating ice.
In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moon-shine.
‘God save thee, ancient Mariner!
80 From the fiends, that plague thee thus! –
Why look’st thou so?’ – With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.
The ancient
Mariner
inhospitably killeth
the pious bird of
good omen.
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
90 Came to the mariners’ hollo!
And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ’em woe:
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!
His ship-mates cry
out against the
ancient Mariner, for
killing the bird of
good luck.
Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
100 That brought the fog and mist.
’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.
But when the fog
cleared off, they
justify the same, and
thus make
themselves
accomplices in the
crime.
The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
The fair breeze
continues; the ship
enters the Pacific
Ocean, and sails
northward, even till
it reaches the Line.
Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
’Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
110 The silence of the sea!
The ship hath been
suddenly becalmed.
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, every where,
120 And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.
And the Albatross
begins to be
avenged.
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,
130 Burnt green, and blue and white.
And some in dreams assurèd were
Of the spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.
A spirit had
followed them; one
of the invisible
inhabitants of this
planet, neither
departed souls nor
angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.
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
140 Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
The ship-mates, in
their sore distress,
would fain throw
the whole guilt on
the ancient Mariner:
in sign whereof they
hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.
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.
The ancient
Mariner beholdeth a
sign in the element
afar off.
At first it seemed a little speck,
150 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!
160 I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!
At its nearer
approach, it seemeth
him to be a ship;
and at a dear
ransom he freeth his
speech from the
bonds of thirst.
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.
A flash of joy;
See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
170 She steadies with upright keel!
And horror follows.
For can it be a ship
that comes onward
without wind or
tide?
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
180 With broad and burning face.
It seemeth him but
the skeleton of a
ship.
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?
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.
190 Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
Like vessel, like
crew!
The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
‘The game is done! I’ve, I’ve won!’
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
Death and
Life-in-death have
diced for the ship’s
crew, and she (the
latter) winneth the
ancient Mariner.
The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out:
200 At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o’er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
No twilight within
the courts of the
Sun.
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
210 The hornèd Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.
At the rising of the
Moon.
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.
One after another,
Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.
His ship-mates drop
down dead.
220 The souls did from their bodies fly, –
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my cross-bow!
But Life-in-Death
begins her work
on the ancient Mariner.
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.
The wedding-guest
feareth that a spirit
is talking to him.
I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.’ –
230 Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropt not down.
But the ancient
Mariner assureth
him of his bodily
life, and proceedeth
to relate his horrible
penance.
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.
He despiseth the
creatures of the
calm.
240 I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.
And envieth
that they should live,
and so many lie dead.
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
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;
250 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.
But the curse liveth
for him in the eye of
the dead men.
An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
260 Is the 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 no where did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside –
In his loneliness
and fixedness he
yearneth towards
the journeying
Moon, and the stars
that still sojourn,
yet still move onward; and every where the blue sky belongs to them, and is
their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes,
which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet
there is a silent joy at their arrival.
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
270 The charmèd 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.
By the light of the
Moon he beholdeth
God’s creatures of
the great calm.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
280 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.
He blesseth them
in his heart.
Their beauty and
their happiness.
The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
290 The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
The spell begins to
break.
PART V
Oh 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;
300 And when I awoke, it rained.
By grace of the holy
Mother, the ancient
Mariner is refreshed
with rain.
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:
310 It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.
He heareth sounds
and seeth strange
sights and
commotions in the
sky and the element.
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;
320 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
330 The dead men gave a groan.
The bodies of the
ship’s crew are
inspired, and the
ship moves on;
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 –
340 We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
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:
But not by the souls
of the men, nor by
demons of earth or
middle air, but by a
blessed troop of
angelic spirits, sent
down by the
invocation of the
guardian saint.
350 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;
360 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
370 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
380 That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.
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.
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,
390 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.
The Polar Spirit’s
fellow demons, the
invisible inhabitants
of the element, take
part in his wrong;
and two of them
relate, one to the
other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the
Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.
‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
400 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 penance done,
And penance more will do.’
PART VI
First voice
410 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.
420 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.
The Mariner hath
been cast into a
trance; for the
angelic power
causeth the vessel to
drive northward
faster than human
life could endure.
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.
430 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.
The supernatural
motion is retarded;
the Mariner awakes,
and his penance
begins anew.
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:
440 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 –
The curse is finally
expiated.
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;
450 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.
460 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 light-house top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
And the ancient
Mariner beholdeth
his native country.
We drifted o’er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray –
470 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.
480 And the bay was white with silent light
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.
The angelic spirits
leave the dead
bodies,
A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck –
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!
And appear in their
own forms of light.
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!
490 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.
500 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!
510 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.
The Hermit of the
wood,
He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve –
520 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,
530 How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were
Approacheth the
ship with wonder.
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)
540 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.
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.
The ship suddenly
sinketh.
550 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.
The ancient
Mariner is saved in
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.
560 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.’
570 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?’
The ancient
Mariner earnestly entreateth
the Hermit to shrieve
him; and the
penance of life falls
on him.
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woful agony,
580 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.
And ever and anon
throughout his
future life an agony
constraineth him to
travel from land to land.
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:
590 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 ’twas, that God himself
600 Scarce seemèd 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!
610 Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
And to teach, by his
own example, love
and reverence to all
things 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,
620 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.
Christabel
PREFACE
The first part of the following poem was written in the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset. The second part, after my return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswick, Cumberland. It is probable, that if the poem had been finished 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 for this, I have only my own indolence to blame.
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