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In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perch'd for vespers nine:

The mariner tells The sun came up upon the left,

how the ship sail. ed southward

Out of the sea came he!

with a good wind And he shone bright, and on the right Whiles all the night, through fog

and fair weather, Went down into the sea.

till it reached the line.

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Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon

smoke white,

Glimmer'd the white moonshine.

"God save thee, ancient mariner!

The wedding-guest here beat his From the fiends that plague thee thus!

breast,

For he heard the loud bassoon.

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Why look'st thou so?"-With my bird of good

cross-bow

I shot the ALBATROSS.

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
Came to the mariner's hollo!

He struck with his o'ertaking wings, And I had done an hellish thing,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dripping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,

And it would work 'em wo:
For all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!

omen.

His shipmates cry out against the ancient mariner,

for killing the bird of good-luck.

The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the Nor dim nor red, like God's own head, But when the fog

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And now there came both mist and That brought the fog and mist.

snow,

And it grew wondrous cold;

'Twas right, said they, such birds to crime.

slay

And ice, mast-high, came floating by, That bring the fog and mist.
As green as emerald.

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'Twas sad as sad could be ;

And we did speak only to break

It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and The silence of the sea!

howl'd,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an albatross:
Thorough the fog it came;

through the snow As if it had been a Christian soul,

fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.

We hail'd it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steer'd us through!

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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, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink:
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

been suddenly becalmed.

And the albatross begins to be avenged.

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And every tongue, through utter How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the
sun,

drought,

Was wither'd at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if Like restless gossamers?

We had been choked with soot.

The shipmates, in Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks would fain throw Had I from old and young!

their sore distress

the whole guilt on Instead of the cross, the albatross About my neck was hung.

the ancient mariner;-in sign whereof they

hang the dead

sea-bird round his neck.

The ancient ma

riner beholdeth a

sign in the ele.

ment afar off.

PART III.

THERE pass'd a weary time. Each

throat

Was parch'd, 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.

At first it seem'd a little speck
And then it seem'd a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And it still near'd and near'd:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tack'd and veer'd.

At its nearer ap- With throats unslaked, with black
lips baked,

proach, it seem

eth him to be a

ship; and at a We could nor laugh nor wail;
freeth his speech Through utter drought all dumb we

dear ransom he

from the bonds of

thirst.

A flash of joy.

stood;

I bit my arm, I suck'd the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

but the skeleton of a ship.

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The steersman's face by his lamp
gleam'd white;

With throats unslaked, with black From the sails the dew did drip

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.

And horror fol- See! see! (I cried,) she tacks no
more !

lows; for can it be

a ship, that comes

onward without

wind or tide?

Hither to work us weal;

Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all a flame,
The day was wellnigh done,
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun;

Till clomb above the eastern bar

The horned moon, with one bright

star

Within the nether tip.

the moon,

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But Life-in-Death The souls did from their bodies fly,- Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, begins her work the ancient They fled to bliss or wo!

on

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And thou art long, and lank, and As is the ribb'd sea-sand.*

"I fear thee and thy glittering eye, And thy skinny hand so brown."

Like April hoar-frost spread;

But where the ship's huge shadow lay,

The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

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Within the shadow of the ship

But the ancient Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-I watch'd their rich attire;

mariner assureth

him of his bodily

guest!

life, and proceed. This body dropt not down.

eth to relate his

horrible penance.

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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.

I look'd upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;

I look'd upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I look'd to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gush'd,
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 béat;

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 gush'd from my heart,

And I bless'd them unaware:
Sure kind saint took pity on me,
my
And I bless'd them unaware.

The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

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,

For the sky and the sea, and the sea That slid into my soul.

and the sky,

Lay like a load on my weary eye
And the dead were at my feet.

But the curse liv. The cold sweat melted from their eth for him in the

eye of the dead

men.

limbs,

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The silly buckets on the deck,

That had so long remain'd,

calm.

Their beauty and

their happiness.

He blesseth them in his heart.

The spell begins to break.

By grace of the holy mother, the ancient mariner

I dreamt that they were fill'd with is refreshed 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,

An orphan's curse would drag to hell And still my body drank.

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rain.

He heareth

sounds and seeth strange sights and

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

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;

the sky and the element.

And the rain pour'd down from one It ceased; yet still the sails made on

black cloud;

The moon was at its edge.

A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

The thick black cloud was cleft, and That to the sleeping woods all night

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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, angelic troop, but
still requireth
And the ship stood still also.
vengeance.

The sun, right up above the mast,
Had fix'd her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan to stir,
With a short uneasy motion-

The helmsman steer'd, the ship moved Backwards and forwards half her

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nor by dæmons of

Be calm, thou wedding-guest:

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 return'd,
I heard and in my soul discern'd
Two VOICES in the air.

"Is it he?" quoth one, "is this the man?

earth or middle 'Twas not those souls that filed in By Him who died on cross,

air, but by a

blessed troop of angelic spirits,

pain,

Which to their corses came again, sent down by the But a troop of spirits blest:

invocation of the guardian saint.

For when it dawn'd-they dropp'd

their arms,

And cluster'd round the mast; Sweet sounds rose slowly through 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-drooping from the sky,
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
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.

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

The polar spirit's fellow dæmons, 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.

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That stands above the rock:

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more The moonlight steep'd in silentness,

high!

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The steady weathercock.

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Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat;
And, by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,

the curse, with which they On every corse there stood.

The pang, died,

Had never pass'd away:

I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

The curse is final. And now the spell was snapt: once ly expiated.

more

I view'd the ocean green,

And look'd 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.

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 O! 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 turn'd perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

But soon there breathed a wind on me, The pilot and the pilot's boy,

Nor sound nor motion made:

Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised 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.

And the ancient O! dream of joy! is this, indeed,

mariner beholdeth his native country.

The light-house top I see?

Is this the hill? is this the kirk? Is this my own countrée ?

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 shrive my soul, he'll wash away
The albatross's blood.

PART VII.

And appear in their own forms of light.

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