"O happy living things! no tongue

Their beauty might declare ; A spring of love gushed from my heart,

And I blessed them unaware ! Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blessed them unaware.

“The loud wind never reached the ship,

Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the moon

The dead men gave a groan.

“They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,

Nor spake, nor moved their eyes: It had been strange, e'en in a dream,

To have seen those dead men rise.

“The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free The albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea."

PART v. “O sleep, it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given, She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven

That slid into my soul.

“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 liseless 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 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.

“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.

“I moved and could not feel my limbs ;

I was so light, almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blesséd 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.

"Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the sun :
Slowly the sounds came back again,

Now mixed, now one by one.

His great bright eye most silently

Up to the moon is cast

"Till noon we quietly sailed on,

Yet never a breeze did breathe : Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Moved onward from beneath.

“If he may know which way to go,

For she guides him smooth or grim. See, brother, see! how graciously

She looketh down on him.'

FIRST VOICE. "But why drives on that ship so fast Without or wave or wind ?'

SECOND VOICE.

"The air is cut away before,

And closes from behind.

"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 suo, right up above the mast

Had fixed her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir

With a short, uneasy motion Backwards and forwards half her length,

With a short, uneasy motion.
“Then, like a pawing horse let go,

She made a sudden bound;
It fung the blood into my head,

And I fell down in a swound.
"How long in that same fit I lay,

I have not to declare :
But ere my living life returned,
I heard, and in my soul discerned

Two voices in the air. *** 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

In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'"

“'Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!

Or we shall be belated :
For slow and slow that ship will go,

When the Mariner's trace is abated.'

"I woke, and we were sailing on

As in a gentle weather : 'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;

The dead men stood together,

“All stood together on the deck,

For a charnel-dungeon fitter; All fixed on me their stony eyes

That in the moon did glitter.

“The pang, the curse, with which they died,

Had never passed away ;
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,

Nor turn them up to pray.