Then vanish'd all the lovely lights; The bodies rose anew: With silent pace, each to his place, The wind, that shade nor motion made, The pilot, and the pilot's boy, 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 Albatross's blood. VII. THIS Hermit good lives in that wood Which slopes down to the Sea. How loudly his sweet voice he rears! He loves to talk with Marineres That come from a far Contrée. He kneels at morn and noon and eveHe hath a cushion plump: It is the moss, that wholly hides The rotted old Oak-stump The Skiff-boat ne'rd: I heard them talk, 66 Why, this is strange, I trow! "Where are those lights so many and fair "That signal made but now? 66 'Strange, by my faith! the Hermit said"And they answer'd not our cheer, "The planks look warp'd, and see those sails "How thin they are and sere! "I never saw aught like to them "Unless perchance it were "The skeletons of leaves that lag "My forest brook along: "When the Ivy-tod is heavy with snow, "And the Owlet whoops to the wolf below "That eats the she-wolf's young. "Dear Lord! it has a fiendish look (The Pilot made reply) "I am a-fear'd.-" Push on, push on! "Said the Hermit cheerily. The Boat came closer to the Ship, The Boat came close beneath the Ship, Under the water it rumbled on, It reach'd the Ship, it split the bay; Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound, Which sky and ocean smote: Like one that hath been seven days drown'd My body lay afloat: But, swift as dreams, myself I found Within the Pilot's boat. Upon the whirl, where sank the Ship, I mov'd my lips: the Pilot shriek'd And fell down in a fit. The Holy Hermit rais'd his eyes I took the oars: the Pilot's boy, Who now doth crazy go, Laugh'd 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." |