CVIII.

The harbor-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,

475 And the shadow 1 of the moon.

CIX.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steeped in silentness 2
The steady weathercock."

CX.

480 And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colors came.

CXI.

A little distance from the prow 485 Those crimson shadows were:

I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, Christ! what saw I there! *

1 Is shadow here used in its ordinary sense?

Suggestive of Remorse, iv, 3.

"The many clouds, the sea, the rocks, the sands
Lie in the silent moonshine."

The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,

And appear
in their own
forms of light.

Which is the more impressive, the departure of the ship amid cheers or its return in silence? Here were inserted in the edition of 1798 five stanzas:

The moonlight bay was white all o'er
Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,
Like as of torches came.

A little distance from the prow
Those dark-red shadows were;
But soon I saw that my own flesh
Was red as in a glare.

I turn'd my head in fear and dread,
And by the holy rood,

The bodies had advanc'd and now
Before the mast they stood.

They lifted up their stiff white arms,
They held them straight and tight;
And each right arm burnt like a torch,
A torch that's borne upright,
Their stony eyeballs glittered on
In the red and smoky light.

I pray'd and turn'd my head away
Forth looking as before.
There was no breeze upon the bay,
No wave against the shore.

• Why had the Ancient Mariner failed to notice this spectacle before?

CXII.

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,

And, by the holy rood!

490 A man all light, a seraph-man,

On every corse there stood.

CXIII.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand;

It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,

495 Each one a lovely light; 1

CXIV.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,

No voice did they impart―

No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.

CXV.

500 But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot's cheer;

My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.2

CXVI.

The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy,
505 I heard them coming fast:

Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.3

1 Compare this scene with that of stanza LXXIX.

2 After this stanza appeared in the 1798 version the following:

Then vanished all the lovely lights;

The bodies rose anew:

With silent pace, each to his place,

Came back the ghastly crew.

The wind that shade nor motion made,

On me alone it blew.

3 The meaning of blast?

CXVII.

I saw a third-I heard his voice:

It is the Hermit good!

510 He singeth loud his godly hymns

That he makes in the wood.

He'll shrive my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross's blood.1

PART VII.

CXVIII.

This Hermit good lives in that wood 2

515 Which slopes down to the sea.

How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres

That come from a far countree.

CXIX.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve

520 He hath a cushion plump:

It is the moss that wholly hides

The rotted old oak-stump.3

CXX.

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
"Why, this is strange, I trow!

525 Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?”

CXXI.

Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said

"And they answered not our cheer!

The Hermit of the Wood.

Approacheth the ship with wonder.

Do the last two lines serve any purpose beyond portraying the feelings of the Ancient Mariner? Does the hermit "wash away the Albatross's blood"?

• How does this man differ from the ordinary conception of a hermit? Where have we found countree' similarly spelled and accented? Has the poet any justification, besides that of producing a rhyme, for thus changing the accent?

Would anything be lost to the poem by the omission of this stanza ?

The ship sud. denly sinketh.

The planks looked warped! and see those sails, 530 How thin they are and sere! 1

1

I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were

CXXII.

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;

535 When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young."

CXXIII.

2

"Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look

(The Pilot made reply)

540 I am a-feared "—" Push on, push on!"
Said the Hermit cheerily.

CXXIV.

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;

The boat came close beneath the ship,

545 And straight a sound was heard.

CXXV.3

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:

It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.*

CXXVI.

550 Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,

Which sky and ocean smote,

1 What adjectives have been used before in describing the appearance of the sails? a With what feelings does the hermit regard the ship?

What is the effect of the irregularity in the metrical structure of the first line of this stanza?

Where has the comparison in this line been used before? In which place is the comparison the more appropriate?

Like one that hath been seven days drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found

555 Within the Pilot's boat.

CXXVII.

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.

CXXVIII.

560 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.

CXXIX.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,

565 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.'1

CXXX.

570 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.

CXXXI.

'O shrive me, shrive me, holy man!' 2 575 The Hermit crossed his brow.

The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrive him;

and the penance of life falls on him.

1 What, besides the mysterious disappearance of the ship, induces the pilot's boy to mistake the Ancient Mariner for the Devil, and the hermit to ask, "What manner of man art thou?"

2 What added idea of the Ancient Mariner's penance do we get from the gloss?