The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Page 7

till my
ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.
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,
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 Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
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.
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