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 "I saw a third — I heard his voice: He singeth loud his godly hymns He'll shrieve my soul, he 'll wash away PART VII "This Hermit good lives in that wood 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, "Strange, by my faith,' the Hermit said 'And they answered not our cheer! 129 The planks look warped! and see those sails, I never saw aught like to them, "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, "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, The boat came close beneath the ship, "Under the water it rumbled on, "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 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 "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, The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, "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, like night, from land to land; I know the man that must hear me: "What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding guests are there; But in the garden bower the bride 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 "Oh, sweeter than the marriage-feast, "Tis sweeter far to me To walk together to the kirk "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 "He prayeth best, who loveth best The Mariner, whose eye is bright, 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, "Or who will kaim my yellow hair |