Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems | Page 6

the hill?Was telling of the sound.
I mov'd my lips: the Pilot shriek'd?And fell down in a fit.?The Holy Hermit rais'd his eyes?And pray'd where he did sit.
I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,?Who now doth crazy go,?Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while?His eyes went to and fro,?"Ha! ha!" quoth he--"full plain I see,?"The devil knows how to row."
And now all in mine own Countrée?I stood on the firm land!?The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,?And scarcely he could stand.
"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy Man!"?The Hermit cross'd his brow--?"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say?"What manner man art thou?"
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd?With a woeful agony,?Which forc'd me to begin my tale?And then it left me free.
Since then at an uncertain hour,?Now oftimes and now fewer,?That anguish comes and makes me tell?My ghastly aventure.
I pass, like night, from land to land;?I have strange power of speech;?The 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?And all together pray,?While each to his great father bends,?Old men, and babes, and loving friends,?And Youths, and Maidens gay.
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell?To thee, thou wedding-guest!?He prayeth well who loveth well?Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best,?All things both great and small:?For the dear God, who loveth us,?He made and loveth all.
The Marinere, whose eye is bright,?Whose beard with age is hoar,?Is gone; and now the wedding-guest?Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.
He went, like one that hath been stunn'd?And is of sense forlorn:?A sadder and a wiser man?He rose the morrow morn.
THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE, A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.
FOSTER-MOTHER.?I never saw the man whom you describe.
MARIA.?'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,?Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye?She gazes idly!--But that entrance, Mother!
FOSTER-MOTHER.?Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!
MARIA.?No one.
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??Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree?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 Velez' cost.?And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,?A pretty boy, but most unteachable--?And never learnt a prayer, nor told a bead,?But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,?And whistled, as he were a bird himself:?And all the autumn 'twas his only play?To get the seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them?With earth and water, on the stumps of trees.?A Friar, who gathered simples in the wood,?A grey-haired man--he loved this little boy,?The boy loved him--and, when the Friar taught him,?He soon could write with the pen: and from that time,?Lived chiefly at the Convent or the Castle.?So he became a very learned youth.?But Oh! poor wretch!--he read, and read, and read,?'Till his brain turned--and ere his twentieth year,?He had unlawful thoughts of many things:?And though he prayed, he never loved to pray?With holy men, nor in a holy place--?But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet,?The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him.?And once, as by the north side of the Chapel?They stood together, chained in deep discourse,?The earth heaved under them with such a groan,?That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen?Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened;?A fever seized him, and he made confession?Of all the heretical and lawless talk?Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized?And cast into that hole. My husband's father?Sobbed like a child--it almost broke his heart:?And once as he was working in the cellar,?He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's,?Who sung a doleful song about green fields,?How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,?To hunt