With throat unslack'd, with black lips At its nearer baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood! I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail! With throat unslacked, with black lips baked, Agape they heard me call: Gramercy! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, As they were drinking all. See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! Hither to work us weal; The western wave was all a-flame. Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun; When that strange shape drove suddenly Betwixt us and the Sun. approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst. A flash of joy. And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide? It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship. And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun. The spectrewoman and her death mate, and no other on board the skeleton-ship. Like vessel, like crew! DEATH, and And straight the Sun was flecked with bars, As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd, Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) Are those her sails that glance in the Sun, Are those her ribs through which the Sun And is that Woman all her crew? Is that a DEATH? and are there two? IS DEATH that woman's mate? Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Night-Mair LIFE-IN-DEATH was she, The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice; "The game is done! I've, I've won!" Quoth she, and whistles thrice. A gust of wind sterte up behind And whistled through his bones; Through the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth, Half whistles and half groans. The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, Off shot the spectre-bark. We listen'd and look'd sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seem'd to sip! The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleam'd white; From the sails the dews did drip Till clombe above the eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip. diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancientMariner At the rising of the Moon, One after another, His shipmates drop down dead; But LIFE-IN- One after one, by the star-dogg'd Moon Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang, And curs'd me with his eye. Four times fifty living men, The souls did from their bodies fly, gins her work They fled to bliss or woe! on the ancient Mariner. And every soul, it passed me by, Like the whiz of my CROSS-BOW! THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. PART THE FOURTH. "I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand.* I fear thee and thy glittering eye, Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! This body dropt not down. Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! The wedding. guest feareth that a spirit is talking to him; But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his hor rible penance. For the two last lines of this stanza, I am indebted to Mr. WORDSWORTH. It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his sister, in the Autumn of 1797, that that this Poem was planned, and in part composed. |