Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems | Page 4

The moving Moon went up the sky
And no where did abide:
Softly
she was going up
And a star or two beside--
Her beams bemock'd the sultry main
Like morning frosts yspread;

But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt
alway
A still and awful red.
Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watch'd the water-snakes:
They
mov'd in tracks of shining white;
And when they rear'd, the elfish
light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watch'd their rich attire:
Blue,
glossy green, and velvet black
They coil'd and swam; and every track

Was a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A
spring of love gusht from my heart,
And I bless'd them unaware!

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I bless'd them unaware.
The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The
Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
V.

O sleep, it is a gentle thing
Belov'd from pole to pole!
To
Mary-queen the praise be yeven
She sent the gentle sleep from
heaven
That slid into my soul.
The silly buckets on the deck
That had so long remain'd,
I dreamt
that they were fill'd with dew
And when I awoke it rain'd.
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 mov'd and could not feel my limbs,
I was so light, almost
I
thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed Ghost.
The roaring wind! it roar'd far off,
It did not come anear;
But with
its sound it shook the sails
That were so thin and sere.
The upper air bursts into life,
And a hundred fire-flags sheen
To
and fro they are hurried about;
And to and fro, and in and out
The
stars dance on between.
The coming wind doth roar more loud;
The sails do sigh, like sedge:

The rain pours down from one black cloud
And the Moon is at its
edge.
Hark! hark! the thick black cloud is cleft,
And the Moon is at its side:

Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning falls with
never a jag
A river steep and wide.
The strong wind reach'd the ship: it roar'd
And dropp'd down, like a
stone!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a
groan.
They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,
Ne spake, ne mov'd their
eyes:
It had been strange, even in a dream
To have seen those dead
men rise.

The helmsman steerd, the ship mov'd on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;

The Marineres all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to
do:
They rais'd 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 pull'd at one rope,
But he said nought to me--
And I quak'd to
think of my own voice
How frightful it would be!
The day-light dawn'd--they dropp'd their arms,
And cluster'd round
the mast:
Sweet sounds rose slowly thro' their mouths
And from
their bodies pass'd.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the sun:

Slowly the sounds came back again
Now mix'd, now one by one.
Sometimes a dropping from the sky
I heard the Lavrock sing;

Sometimes all little birds that are
How they seem'd to fill the sea and
air
With their sweet jargoning,
And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And
now it is an angel's song
That makes the heavens be mute.
It ceas'd: yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A
noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the
sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Listen, O listen, thou Wedding-guest!
"Marinere! thou hast thy will:

"For that, which comes out of thine eye, doth make
"My body and
soul to be still."
Never sadder tale was told
To a man of woman born:
Sadder and
wiser thou wedding-guest!
Thou'lt rise to morrow morn.

Never sadder tale was heard
By a man of woman born:
The
Marineres all return'd to work
As silent as beforne.
The Marineres all 'gan pull the ropes,
But look at me they n'old:

Thought I, I am as thin as air--
They cannot me behold.
Till moon we silently sail'd on
Yet never a breeze did breathe:

Slowly and smoothly went the ship
Mov'd onward from beneath.
Under the keel nine fathom deep
From the land of mist and snow

The spirit slid: and it was He
That made the Ship to go.
The sails at
noon left off their tune
And the Ship stood still also.
The sun right up above the mast
Had fix'd her to the ocean:
But in a
minute she 'gan stir
With a short uneasy motion--
Backwards and
forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.
Then, like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound:
It
flung the blood into my head,
And I fell into a swound.
How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my
living life return'd,
I heard and in my soul discern'd
Two voices in
the air,
"Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the