The harbour-bay was clear as glass, And on the bay the moonlight lay, The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, The moonlight steeped in silentness The steady weathercock. And the bay was white with silent light Full many shapes, that shadows were, A little distance from the prow I turned my eyes upon the deck- Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat, 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, 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, The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, I heard them coming fast: Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy 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 Hermit of the Wood, Approacheth the ship with wonder. PART VII "This Hermit good lives in that wood How loudly his sweet voice he rears! That come from a far countree. He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve- It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old oak-stump. The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk, Where are those lights so many and fair, 'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said- The planks looked warped! and see those sails, I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were The ship suddenly sinketh. The ancient in the Pilot's boat. Brown skeletons of leaves that lag When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, 'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look'- 'I am a-feared.'-'Push on, push on!' The boat came closer to the ship, The boat came close beneath the ship, Under the water it rumbled on, It reached the ship, it split the bay; Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, Like one that hath been seven days drowned But swift as dreams, myself I found Within the Pilot's boat. Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked The Holy Hermit raised his eyes, The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him. And ever and I took the oars: The Pilot's boy Laughed loud and long, and all the while '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, 'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!' 'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say— Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched Which forced me to begin my tale; I pass, like night, from land to land; 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: 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 So lonely, 'twas, that God himself O sweeter than the marriage-feast, To walk together to the kirk, To walk together to the kirk, And all together pray. While each to his great Father bends, Farewell, farewell! but this I tell He prayeth best, who loveth best The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest He went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn. |