The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;
And all that mighty heart is lying still!

COMPOSED UPON THE BEACH, NEAR CALAIS,
AUGUST, 1802

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a Nun
Breathless with adoration; the broad sun
Is sinking down in its tranquillity;
The gentleness of heaven broods o'er Sea.
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder-everlastingly.

5

Dear Child! dear Girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, 10
Thy nature is not therefore less divine.
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year;
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

"THE WORLD IS TOO MUCH WITH US"
(1806)

The world is too much with us: late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers:
Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
The Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.-Great God! I'd rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn.

5

10

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

1772-1834

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

IN SEVEN PARTS

(From the Lyrical Ballads, 1798)

Argument

How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.

PART I.

An ancient Ma- It is an ancient Mariner,

riner meeteth

three Gallants

bidden to a wedding-feast, and detaineth one.

And he stoppeth one of three,

'By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;

6

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,

'There was a ship,' quoth he.

10

‘Hold off! unhand me, gray-beard loon!'

The WeddingGuest is spell bound by the eye of the old

seafaring man,

and constrained

to hear his tale.

Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye-
The Wedding-Guest stood still,

And listens like a three years' child: 15
The Mariner hath his will.

The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with

a good wind and fair weather, till

it reached the line.

The Wedding

Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner con

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyes Mariner.

20

'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

The sun came up upon the left
Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon-'

25

30

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes

35

tinueth his tale. The merry minstrelsy.

The ship driven by a storm to

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

'And now the Storm-blast came, and he

ward the south Was tyrannous and strong:
pole.

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

40

With sloping masts and dipping prow, 45
As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

50

And now there came both mist and snow
And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

The land of ice, And through the drifts the

and of fearful

sounds where

no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great sea

bird, called the

Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.

And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship

as it returned northward

through fog and floating ice.

clifts

Did send a dismal sheen:

snowy

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:

55

60

It cracked and growled, and roared and

howled,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed 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 steered us through!

65

70

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariners' hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, 75
It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke
white,

Glimmered the white moon-shine.'

The ancient Ma-God save thee, ancient Mariner!

riner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.

From the fiends, that plague thee

thus!

80

Why look'st thou so?'-With my cross

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,

Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners' hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.

90

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, 95
That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:

Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.

100

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, That bring the fog and mist.