From the sails the dew did drip-
Till clomb above the eastern bar

The horned moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after anoth- "One after one, by the star-dogged moon, Too quick for groan or sigh,

er,

His ship-mates drop down dead.

But Life-in

Death begins her

work on the An

cient Mariner.

Each turned 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 dropped down one by one.

"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!"

PART IV.

The Wedding- "I FEAR thee, Ancient Mariner!

Guest feareth

that a Spirit is

talking to him.

But the Ancient

Mariner assureth

I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

“I fear thee and thy glittering eye,

him of his bodily And thy skinny hand so brown”life, and proceed- «Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!

eth to relate his

horrible penance. This body dropped not down.

“Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide, wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

66 The many men, so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie;
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on-and so did I.

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

"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;

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.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm.

And envied that they should live, and so many lie dead.

"The cold sweat melted from their limbs- But the curse

Nor rot nor reek did they;

The look with which they looked on me

Had never passed away.

"An orphan's curse would drag to hell

liveth for him in

the eye of the

dead men.

A spirit from on high;

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native coun

try, and their own natural homes,

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 nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside-

" Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;

which they enter But where the ship's huge shadow lay
unannounced, 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 charmed 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.

"Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
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.

"The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.'

The spell begins

to break.

PART V.

"O 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;
And when I awoke, it rained.

"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---
It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

"The upper air burst into life;
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,

By grace of the holy Mother, the Ancient Mariner is refreshed with

rain.

He heareth

sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.

The bodies of

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

'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;

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
The dead men gave a groan.

66

They groaned, they stirred, they all up

rose

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—

We were a ghastly crew.