PART VI.

FIRST VOICE.

"But tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing-

What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the ocean doing?'

SECOND VOICE.

'Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast:
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the moon is cast-

If he may know which way to go,
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.'

FIRST VOICE.

'But why drives on that ship so fast Without or wave or wind?'

SECOND VOICE.

'The air is cut away before,

And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high,
Or we shall be belated:

For slow and slow that ship will go,

When the Mariner's trace is abated.'

I woke, and we were sailing on

As in a gentle weather:

"Twas night, calm night, the moon was high. The dead men stood together.

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All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter;
All fixed on me their stony eyes
That in the moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse,

with which they died,

Had never passed away;

I could not draw my eyes from theirs,

Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapp'd: once more

I viewed the ocean green,

And look'd far forth, yet little saw

Of what had else been seen

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turn'd round, walks on
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,

Nor sound nor motion made:

Its path was not upon the sea
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek,
Like a meadow-gale of spring-

It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze-
On me alone it blew.

O dream of joy! is this indeed

The light-house top I see?

Is this the hill? Is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countrée ?

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray-
'O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.'

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn !
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the moon.

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

The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:

I turned my eyes upon the deck-
O Christ! what saw I there?

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat;
And by the holy rood

A man all light, a seraph-man.

On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand; It was a heavenly sight:

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They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand;
No voice did they impart-

No voice; but O! 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,
And I saw a boat appear.

The pilot, and the pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.

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."

PART 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 Mariners

That come from a far countrée.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eye-
He hath a cushion plump :

It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.

The skiff-boat near'd; I heard them talk,
'Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair
That signal made but now ?'

'Strange, by my faith!' the hermit said—
'And they answered not our cheer.
The planks look warped, 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-feared.'—'Push on, push on !'
Said the hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

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.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound.

Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days drowned My body lay afloat: