V.

O SLEEP, it is a gentle thing
Belov'd from pole to pole!

To Mary-queen the praise be yeven

She sent the gentle sleep from heaven That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck

That had so long remain'd,

I dreamt that they were fill'd with dew

And when I awoke it rain'd.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,

My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my

And still my body drank.

dreams

I mov'd and could not feel my
I was so light, almost

limbs,

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessed Ghost.

The roaring wind! it roar'd far off,

It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails
That were so thin and sere.

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

To and fro they are hurried about;
And to and fro, and in and out

The stars dance on between.

The coming wind doth roar more loud;
The sails do sigh, like sedge:

The rain pours down from one black cloud
And the Moon is at its edge.

Hark! hark! the thick black cloud is cleft,

And the Moon is at its side:

Like waters shot from some high crag,

The lightning falls with never a jag

A river steep and wide.

The strong wind reach'd the ship: it roar'd
And dropp'd down, like a stone!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,
Ne spake, ne mov'd their eyes:

It had been strange, even in a dream
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steerd, the ship mov'd on ; Yet never a breeze up-blew;

The Marineres all 'gan work the ropes,

Where they were wont to do:

They rais'd 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 pull'd at one rope,

But he said nought to me—

And I quak'd to think of my own voice

How frightful it would be!

The day-light dawn'd-they dropp'd their arms,

And cluster'd round the mast:

Sweet sounds rose slowly thro' their mouths

And from their bodies pass'd.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the sun :

Slowly the sounds came back again

Now mix'd, now one by one.

Sometimes a dropping from the sky

I heard the Lavrock sing;

Sometimes all little birds that are

How they seem'd 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.

A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

That to the sleeping woods all night

Singeth a quiet tune.