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.

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.

The Hermit of the Wood,

Approacheth the ship with wonder.

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.

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?'

'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said-
'And they answered not our cheer!

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

The ship suddenly sinketh.

The ancient
Mariner is saved

in the Pilot's

boat.

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.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful 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.

The ancient

Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to

shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him.

And ever and
anon throughout
his future life
an agony
constraineth
him to travel
from land to
land,

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.

'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'
The Hermit crossed his brow.

'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?'

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

I

pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!

The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden-bower the bride

And bride-maids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,

Which biddeth me to prayer!

And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:

So lonely, 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
"Tis sweeter far to me,

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
And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man,

He rose the morrow morn.