The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Page 5

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.
PART THE FIFTH.
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary
Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,

That slid into my soul.
The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt
that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.
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 moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light--almost
I
thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.
And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its
sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.
The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and
fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The
wan stars danced between.
And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like
sedge;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The Moon
was at its edge.
The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side:

Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a
jag,
A river steep and wide.
The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!

Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved
their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those
dead men rise.
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up
blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Were they were wont to
do:
They raised 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 pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me.
"I fear thee, ancient Mariner!"
Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!

'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came

again,
But a troop of spirits blest:
For when it dawned--they dropped their arms,
And clustered round
the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from
their bodies passed.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;

Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed 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 ceased; 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.
Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:

Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved 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 fixed 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 down in a swound.
How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my

living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two VOICES
in the air.
"Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,

With his cruel bow he laid full low,
The harmless Albatross.
"The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He
loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow."
The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, "The
man hath penance done,
And penance more will do."
PART THE SIXTH.
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 trance is abated.

I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
'Twas night,
calm