400

The spell begins to break.

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

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,
That slid into my soul.

By grace of The silly buckets on the deck,

the Holy

Mother, the That had so long remained,

ancient

mariner is

refreshed with rain.

He heareth

sounds and #eth strange

sights and

commotions

in the sky

and the element.

I dreamt that they were filled with dew,
And when I woke it rained.

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 a-near;

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 upblew,

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.

The body of my brother's son

Stood by me knee to knee :

The body and I pulled at one rope,

But he said naught to me.

The bodies of the ship's

crew are in

spired, and the ship moves on.

402

the souls of

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

"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,
But a troop of spirits blest.

the men, nor by demons of earth or

middle air, but by a blessed

troop of an

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, And from their bodies passed.

ca ion of the

guardian

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 vice,
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 obedience to the angelic troop, but still requir eth vengeance.

The polar spirit's fellow-demons, 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 mariiner hath been accorded to the po las spirit, who "eturn

eth southward.

404

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

PART VI.

FIRST VOICE.

Bu1 tell me, tel me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing,

Wha 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 bath

been cast in. Without or wave or wind?

to a trance;

for the an

gelic 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.

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,

natural motion is re

tarded; the mariner

awakes, and

As in a gentle weather;

"T was night, calm night, the moon was high;

his penance The dead mer. stood together.

begins

new.