We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray-

O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,

And the shadow of the Moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,

That stands above the rock :

The moonlight steeped in silentness

The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light

Till, rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,

In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.

The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies.

And appear in their own forms of

light.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;

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,

I heard the Pilot's cheer;

My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

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

That he makes in the wood.

He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood.

PART VII.

THIS Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.

How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres

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.

6

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them

talk,

'Why, this is strange, I trow!

Where are those lights so many and

fair,

That signal made but now?'

The Hermit of the wood,

Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit Approach

said

'And they answered not our cheer!

eth the ship with won

der.

The ship suddenly sinketh.

The planks looked warped! and see those sails,

How thin they are and sere!

I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag

My forest-brook along;

When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young.'

'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look-
(The Pilot made reply)

I am a-feared''Push on, push on!'
Said the Hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;

The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread :

It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

The ancient Stunned by that loud and dreadful

Mariner is

saved in the

Pilot's boat

sound,

Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days

drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat,

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;

The holy hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,

Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro.

Ha ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I

see,

The Devil knows how to row.'

And now, all in my own countree,

I stood on the firm land!

The Hermit stepped forth from the

boat,

And scarcely he could stand.