The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew: Quoth he the man hath penance done, And penance more will do. 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 "If he may know which way to go, FIRST VOICE. "But why drives on that ship so fast "Without or wave or wind? SECOND VOICE. "The air is cut away before, "And closes from behind. 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, The pang, the curse, with which they died, Had never pass'd away; I could not draw my eyes from theirs Nor turn them up to pray. And now this spell was snapt: once more I view'd the ocean green, And look'd far forth, yet little saw Of what had else been seen. Like one, that on a lonesome road And having once turn'd round, walks on Because he knows, a frightful fiend But soon there breath'd a wind on me, Nor sound nor motion made: Its path was not upon the sea In ripple or in shade. It rais'd my hair, it fann'd my cheek, It mingled strangely with my fears, M |