drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if We had been choked with soot.

Ah, well-a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the albatross About my neck was hung.

PART III.

"There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye!
When looking westward I beheld
A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

'A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged, and tacked, and veered.

'With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood;
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried: "A sail! a sail !"

How fast she nears and nears;

Are those her sails that glance in the sun Like restless gossameres?

The sun's rim dips, the stars rush out,
At one stride comes the dark :
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea
Off shot the spectre-bark.

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
'We listened and looked sideways up;

My life-blood seemed to sip.

The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip-
Till clomb above the eastern bar

baked,

Agape they heard me call;

Gramercy they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

""See! - see!" I cried, "she tacks no more,

Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel."

'The western wave was all a-flame,
The day was well-nigh done,
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the sun.

'And straight the sun was flecked with

bars

Heaven's mother send us grace !—
As if through a dungeon grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Within the nether tip.

'One after one, by the star-dogged moon, Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye.

'Four times fifty living men-
And I heard nor sigh nor groan-
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

"The souls did from their bodies fly-
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul it passed me by
Like the whizz 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 dropped not down.

'Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

"The many men so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on, and so did I.

'I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;

I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

'I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gushed,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

'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 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 oh! more horrible than that
Is a curse in a dead man's eye!

'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,

"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.

In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.'

[The ship is driven onward, but at length the curse is finally expiated. A wind springs up;

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring-
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

The mariner sees his native country. The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies, and appear in their own forms of light, each waving his hand to the shore. A boat

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;

proaches the ship, which suddenly sinks. The mariner is rescued; he entreats the hermit to shrive him, and the penance of life falls on him.]

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

arms,

And clustered round the mast;

To him my tale I teach.

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.

Sometimes, a-dropping from the sky,
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air,
With their sweet jargoning!

'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 pleasant noise till noon,"

A noise like of a hidden brook

door!

The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bridesmaids 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 sea:
So lonely 'twas that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

'O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
"Tls 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!