the souls of

"I fear thee, ancient mariner ! "
Be calm, thou wedding-guest!

But not by "T was not those souls that fled in pain
Which to their corses came again,

the men, nor by demons of earth or

middle air, but by a blessed

troop of an

But a troop of spirits blest.

For when it dawned, they dropped their arms,

gelic spirits And clustered round the mast;

sent down

by the invo. Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, guardian And from their bodies passed.

cation of the

saint.

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 't was like all instruments,

Now like a lonely flute,

And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the heavens be mute.

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 alsò.

The sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean :
But in a minute she 'gan to 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.

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
And penance more will do."

penance done,

The lone. some spirit from the south pole carries on the ship as far as the line, in obe. dience to the angelic troop, but still requir eth vengeance.

The polar spirit's fellow-demons, the invisible inhabitants of the ele

ment, take part in his wrong, and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient mariiner hath been accorded to the po lar spirit, who returneth southward.

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.

The mari- But why drives on that ship so fast,

ner hath

been cast in- Without or wave or wind?

to a trance;

for the angelic power

causeth the

vessel to

SECOND VOICE.

drive north- The air is cut away before,

ward faster

than human And closes from behind.

life could endure.

natural mo

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.

The super- I woke, and we were sailing on, tion is re- As in a gentle weather;

tarded; the

awakes, and

mariner "T was night, calm night, the moon was high; his penance The dead men stood together.

begins

anew.

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.

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

The curse is finally expiated;

cient mari

And the an- O dream of joy! is this, indeed,
The lighthouse top I see?

ner beholdtive coun

eth his na

try.

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.

The angelic And the bay was white with silent light, Till, rising from the same,

spirits leave the dead bodies,

in their own

Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colors came.

And appear A little distance from the prow
forms of Those crimson shadows were;
I turned my eyes upon the deck, -
O Christ! what saw I there!

light.

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!