Their souls did from their bodies fly,

They fled to bliss or woe;

And every soul it passed me by,
Like the whiz of my cross-bow."

PART IV.

"I fear thee, ancient mariner !
I fear thy skinny hand;

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 the wide wide sea; And Christ would take no pity on My soul in agony.

The many men so beautiful,

And they all dead did lie!
And a million million slimy things
Lived on-and so did I.

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

I looked to Heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came and made

My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids and kept them close,

Till 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 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 O! more horrible 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 no where did abide :

Softly she was going up

And a star or two beside

Her beams bemocked the sultry main
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water-snakes.

They moved in tracks of shining white; And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes,

Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire.

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gusht from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware!
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

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 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.

The upper air burst into life,
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,

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 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, 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:

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.