The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they :
The look with which they look'd on me
Had never pass’d away.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

An orphan's curse would drag to Hell
A spirit from on bigh;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky,

his loneliAnd no where did abide :

ness and

fixedness, be Softly she was going up,

yearneth

towards the And a star or two beside

journeying Moon, and the

stars that still Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, sojourn, yet

still move on. Like April hoar-frost spread;

ward ; and But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,

every where

the blue sky The charmed water burut alway

By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the

Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watch'd the water-snakes :
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

great calm.

Within the shadow of the ship

I watch'd their rich attire :

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

Their beauty and their happiness.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gusht from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware !
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

He blesseth them in his heart.

The spell begins to break.

The self same moment I could pray;
And from

my

neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

PART THE FIFTH.

Oh SLEEP! it is a gentle thing,
Belov'd from pole to pole !
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

Mother, the ancient Mari. ner is refreshed with rain.

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,
And was a blessed ghost.

He heareth And soon I heard a roaring wind : sounds, and

It did not come anear ;
seeth
strange sights But with its sound it shook the sails,
and commo-
tions in the That were so thin and sere.
sky and the
element.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about ;
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;
And the rain pour'd down from one black

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 bodies of the ship's crew are inspirited, and the ship moves on;

The dead men gave a groan.

They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all ʼgan 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.