'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 He loved the bird that loved the man The other was a softer voice, Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done, relate, one to the other, that penance long andheavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar 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; FIRST VOICE. The Mariner But why drives on that ship so fast, hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure. Without or wave or wind ?' SECOND VOICE. 'The air is cut away before, And closes from behind. Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high! For slow and slow that ship will go, When the Mariner's trance is abated.' The superna- I woke, and we were sailing on tural motion is retarded; As in a gentle weather: the Mariner awakes, and 'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high; his penance begins anew. The dead men stood together. All stood together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: The pang, the curse, with which they died, I could not draw my eyes from theirs, The curse is And now this spell was snapt: once mort finally expi- I viewed the ocean green, ated. And looked far forth, yet little saw Like one, that on a lonesome road And having once turned round walks on, Because he knows, a frightful fiend But soon there breathed a wind on me, Its path was not upon the sea, It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed Is this the hill? is this the kirk? We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, And the an cient Mari ner beholdeth his native country. The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies. And appear in their own forms of light. The harbour-bay was clear as glass, And on the bay the moonlight lay, The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, The moonlight steeped in silentness And the bay was white with silent light Full many shapes, that shadows were, A little distance from the prow I turned my eyes upon the deck- Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, A man all light, a seraph-man, On every corse there stood. This seraph-band, each waved his hand: It was a heavenly sight! They stood as signals to the land, This seraph-band, each waved his hand, No voice did they impart No voice; but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart. But soon I heard the dash of oars, My head was turned perforce away, The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy I saw a third-I heard his voice: He singeth loud his godly hymns He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood. PART VII. THIS Hermit good lives in that wood That come from a far countree. He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve He hath a cushion plump : It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old oak-stump. The Hermit of the wood, I |