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;

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,

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.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
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.

"I fear thee, ancient Mariner!"

Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!

'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, Which to their corses came again,

But a troop of spirits blest:

But not by the souls of the men, nor by dæmons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed

troop of an

gelic spirits,

For when it dawned-they dropped their arms, sent down by And clustered round the mast;

the invocation of the guard

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, ian saint
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the Sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,

Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed 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.

The lonesome Spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as far as the Line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance

It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

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,
And the ship stood still also.

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-

Backwards and forwards 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.

The Polar Spirit's fellowdæmons, 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

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:

८८

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

66

But why drives on that ship so fast,

Without or wave or wind?"

SECOND VOICE

The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive north.

"The air is cut away before,

And closes from behind.

ward faster

than human

life could
endure

The supernatural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew

The curse is

finally expiated

66

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-dungeon fitter:
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.