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-

Backward and forward 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 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.

'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?

By Him who died on cross,

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.

'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;

'Twas night, calm night—the moon was high; The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeonfitter;
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;

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

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;

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.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too;
Sweetly, sweetly, blew the breeze-
On me alone it blew.

O dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?

Is this the hill? Is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?

We drifted o'er the harbor-bar,
And I with sobs did pray-
O, let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway!

The harbor-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.

And the bay was white with silent light,

Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes that shadows were,

In crimson colors came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned 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 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.

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 a hermit good!

He singeth loud his Godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.

He'll shrive my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross' 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 mariners

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!

The planks looked 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.

Upon the whirl where sank the ship
The boat span round and round;
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.

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
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-
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,
He made and loveth all.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

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.

-Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

When ye would elude our eyes.
Pretty creatures! we might deem
Ye were happy as ye seem.

As gay, as gamesome and as blithe,
As light, as loving, and as lithe,
As gladly earnest in your play,
As when ye gleamed in fair Cathay;
And yet, since on this hapless earth
There's small sincerity in mirth,
And laughter oft is but an art
To drown the outcry of the heart,

It may be, that your ceaseless gambols,
Your wheelings, dartings, divings, rambles,
Your restless roving round and round
The circuit of your crystal bound,

Is but the task of weary pain,

An endless labor, dull and vain;

And while your forms are gaily shining,
Your little lives are inly pining!
Nay-but still I fain would dream
That ye are happy as ye seem.

-Hartley Coleridge.

HE sun is low, as ocean's flow

TH

Heaves to the strand in breakers white; And sea-birds seek their wild retreat Where the cliffs reflect the fading light.

The billow gleams in parting beams,

And sighs upon the lonely shore,

Whilst childhood stands upon the sands To greet the coming fisher's oar.

Swift to my heart the waves impart Another dream of restless life,

As some proud mind the fierce fates bind, Or doom to vain and endless strife.

The waves are bright with peace to-night, And gladly bound 'neath summer's reign; I tread the verge of the shelving surge, To muse upon its wild refrain.

O deep! thy winds, in murmuring chimes Sweet to my ear, my love implore,

Thou dost enthral with siren call, And tempt me from thy peaceful shore!

Yes, o'er the graves, thy heaving waves, A stern delight with danger dwells;

There's buoyant life amid thy strife, And rapture in thy lonely dells.

E'en in thy wrath, thy surging path Hath peril's joy beyond thy shores!

Amid the glare of their despair, The soul above thy terror soars.

But 'neath thy smile there's death and wile, The dark abyss, the waiting grave!

Thy surges close o'er human woes On distant strand, in secret cave!

Insatiate sea! oh, where is she Who trod in love thy gathered sands?

Thou gavest her back as wreck and wrack, Pallid, to sad, imploring hands!

And where is he, O sea! O sea!

Who dared thy treacherous crests to ride?

The quick command, the hastening hand,

Were vain to rescue from thy tide!

Yet not in woe the plaint should go Against thee for the storm's behest; Thou'rt but the slave when wild winds rave And tyrant tempests lash thy breast.

Doomed in thy keep the fates to meet, Thou dost obey a mightier wrath!

Imperious sway commands thy way, And riots in its reckless path.

Shall time's swift flight e'er stay thy might That dooms us to thy caves unblest!

Or God's right arm thy tides disarm, And soothe to peace thy long unrest?

No! still thy waves with moaning staves Shall heave thy gray sands to the shore,

Aud thou shalt roll o'er depth and shoal Forever and forevermore!

-William Whitehead.