from land to land, I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, I know the man that must hear me: To him my tale I teach. What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding-guests are there; But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are; And hark the little vesper bell, Which biddeth me to prayer! O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely 'twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be. O sweeter than the marriage-feast, "Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk With a goodly company !— To walk together to the kirk, While each to his great Father bends, Farewell, farewell! but this I tell He prayeth best, who loveth best The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest Turned from the bridegroom's door. He went like one that hath been stunned, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man, He rose the morrow morn. And to teach and loveth. 'Tis strange, he spake of you familiarly, As mine and Albert's common Foster-Mother. FOSTER-MOTHER. Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be, That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady! As often as I think of those dear times, When you two little-ones would stand at eve On each side of my chair, and make me learn All you had learnt in the day, and how to talk In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you 'Tis more like heaven to come than what has been. MARIA. O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me Troubled with wilder fancies, than the Moon Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it, She gazes idly-But that entrance, Mother! FOSTER-MOTHER. Can no one hear. It is a perilous tale! No one? MARIA. FOSTER-MOTHER. My husband's father told it me, Poor old Leoni: Angels, rest his soul! He was a woodman, and could fell, and saw, With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging-wall of the old chapel? He found a baby, wrapt in mosses lined With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home, And reared him at the then Lord Valez' cost; And so the babe grew up a pretty boy |