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RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

"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!

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.

"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 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!

129

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:

"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!

"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.

66 Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, The boat spun round and round;

RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 131

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.

"Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns:

And till my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.

"I

pass,
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see,

like night, from land to land;

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 bridemaids 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 seemèd there to be.

"Oh, 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!

THE LASS OF LOCHROYAN

"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 is hoar,
age

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.

133

Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

THE LASS OF LOCHROYAN

"OH, who will shoe my bonny foot,
And who will glove my hand?
And who will lace my middle jimp
Wi' a long, long, linen band?

"Or who will kaim my yellow hair
Wi' a new-made silver kaim?
Oh, who will father my young son
Till Lord Gregory comes hame?

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