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The souls did from their bodies fly,-
They fled to bliss or woe!

And every soul, it passed me by,

Like the whizz of my cross-bow!

But Life-in-Death begins

her work on the ancient mariner.

"I fear thee, ancient mariner!

I fear thy skinny hand!

PART IV.

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand so brown."
Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest!
This body dropt not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

The many men so beautiful!

And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand shiny things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But, or ever a prayer had gushed,

A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,

Lay like a load on my weary eye,

And the dead were at my feet.

The wedding guest feareth that a spirit is talking to him;

But the ancient mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to re late his horrible penance.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm,

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead:

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The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:

The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;

But oh! more terrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide :
Softly she was going up

And a star or two beside

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;

And where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

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But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead

men.

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country, and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.

By the light of the moon he beholdeth God's crea tures of the great calm.

Their beauty and their happiness.

He blesseth them in his heart.

The selfsame moment I could pray;

The spell begins to break.

And from my neck so free

The albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.

196. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, § 2.

COLERIDGE.

OH sleep! it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole!

PART V.

To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, 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 anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

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By grace of the holy mother, the ancient mariner is refreshed with rain.

He heareth sounds, and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.

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 how the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all up-rose,
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 up-blew;

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 nought to me.

I fear thee, ancient mariner!"
Be calm, thou wedding-guest!

"Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:

The bodies of the ships' crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;

But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.

For when it dawned-they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

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 'twas 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 also.

The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean :

VOL. III.

1

The lonesome spirit from the south pole carries on the ship as far as the line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.

H

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