6

"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.

“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 shrive me, shrive 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.

"Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns:

And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

"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 bridemaids singing are:

And hark the little vesper bell,

Which biddeth me to prayer.

"O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide, wide sca:

So lonely 't was, that God himself

Scarce seeméd 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.

Y hair is gray, but not with years,

Nor

grew it white

In a single night,

As men's have grown from sudden fears: My limbs are bowed, though not with toil, But rusted with a vile repose,

For they have been a dungeon's spoil, And mine has been the fate of those To whom the goodly earth and air Are banned, and barred, - forbidden fare; But this was for my father's faith I suffered chains and courted death; That father perished at the stake For tenets he would not forsake; And for the same his lineal race In darkness found a dwelling-place; We were seven - who now are one, Six in youth, and one in age,

Finished as they had begun,

Proud of Persecution's rage;
One in fire, and two in field,
Their belief with blood have sealed,
Dying as their father died,

For the God their foes denied ;
Three were in a dungeon cast,

Of whom this wreck is left the last.

II.

gray,

There are seven pillars of Gothic mould
In Chillon's dungeons deep and old,
There are seven columns, massy and
Dim with a dull imprisoned ray,
A sunbeam which hath lost its way,
And through the crevice and the cleft
Of the thick wall is fallen and left;
Creeping o'er the floor so damp,
Like a marsh's meteor lamp :
And in each pillar there is a ring,

And in each ring there is a chain;
That iron is a cankering thing,

For in these limbs its teeth remain,
With marks that will not wear away,
Till I have done with this new day,
Which now is painful to these eyes,
Which have not seen the sun so rise
I cannot count them o'er,

For years,

I lost their long and heavy score

When my last brother drooped and died,

And I lay living by his side.