My head was turn'd perforce away, [Then vanish'd all the lovely lights; The bodies rose anew : With silent расе, each to his place, Came back the ghastly crew. The wind that shade nor motion made 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 He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away * This stanza only appears in the edition of 1798. In a copy of that edition the stanza is marked through, and the following lines are substituted in the margin in the handwriting of the author : "Then vanish'd all the lovely lights, The spirits of the air, No souls of mortal men were they, But spirits bright and fair." PART VII. THIS Hermit good lives in that wood How loudly his sweet voice he rears! That come from a far countree. He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve— It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old oak-stump. The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk, 66 Why, this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights so many and fair, "Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said- The planks look warp'd! and see those sails, I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were Brown skeletons * of leaves that lag My forest-brook along; *The skeletons.-1798-1817. The Hermit of the wood Approacheth the ship with wonder. When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, "Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look— I am a-fear'd"-" Push on, push on!" The boat came closer to the ship, The boat came close beneath the ship, Under the water it rumbled on, It reach'd the ship, it split the bay; Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound, Like one that hath been seven days drown'd But swift as dreams, myself I found Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, I moved my lips-the Pilot shriek'd The holy Hermit raised his eyes, And pray'd where he did sit. I took the oars: the Pilot's boy, Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while "Ha! ha!" quoth he, “full plain I see And now, all in my own countree, The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat, "O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" The Hermit cross'd his brow. "Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee sayWhat manner of man art thou ?" Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd Which forced me to begin my tale; Since then, at an uncertain hour, And till my ghastly tale is told, *Since then at an uncertain hour Now ofttimes and now fewer, The ancient And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land; And to teach, by his own example, love and re I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; The moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me : What loud uproar bursts from that door! But in the garden-bower the bride O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been So lonely 'twas, that God himself O sweeter than the marriage-feast, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company !— To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray, While each to his great Father bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends, Farewell, farewell! but this I tell |