The souls did from their bodies fly,- 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, I fear thee and thy glittering eye, Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on The many men so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand shiny things I looked upon the rotting sea, I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; A wicked whisper came, and made 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: The cold sweat melted from their limbs, The look with which they looked on me An orphan's curse would drag to hell But oh! more terrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, The moving Moon went up the sky, And a star or two beside Her beams bemocked the sultry main, And where the ship's huge shadow lay, 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! The silly buckets on the deck, I dreamt that they were filled with dew; My lips were wet, my throat was cold, I moved, and could not feel my limbs : I was so light-almost I thought that I had died in sleep, And soon I heard a roaring wind: But with its sound it shook the sails, 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 loud wind never reached the ship, They groaned, they stirred, they all up-rose, 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- The body of my brother's son Stood by me, knee to knee: The body and I pulled at one rope, I fear thee, ancient mariner!" "Twas not those souls that fled in pain, 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, Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Slowly the sounds came back again, Sometimes a-dropping from the sky, Sometimes all little birds that are, 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 noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Till noon we quietly sailed on, Under the keel nine fathom deep, The sails at noon left off their tune, The Sun, right up above the mast, 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 |