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

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?

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

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

The harbour-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 colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, 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.

And the an

cient Mariner beholdeth his native country

The Angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,

And appear
in their own
forms of light

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 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.

The Hermit

of the Wood

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,

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Why, this is strange, I trow!

Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?"

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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

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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)

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I am a-feared”. Push
Said the Hermit cheerily.

on, push on!"

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.

Approacheth the ship with wonder

The ship suddenly sinketh

The ancient
Mariner is
saved in the
Pilot's boat

The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to

shrieve him; and the penance of life

falls on him

And ever and

anon through

out his future

life an agony

constraineth
him to travel
from land
to land,

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun 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.

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.

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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.

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O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!"
The Hermit crossed his brow.

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Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee sayWhat 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 have strange power of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

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 bride-maids 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 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!-

To waik 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.

And to teach,
by his own
example,
love and rev-
erence to all
things that
God made
and loveth

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