The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | Page 5

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 night, the Moon was high;?The dead men stood together.
All stood together on the deck,?For a charnel-dungeon fitter:?All fixed on me their stony eyes,?That in the Moon did glitter.
The pang, the curse, with which they died,?Had never passed away:?I could not draw my eyes from theirs,?Nor turn them up to pray.
And now this spell was snapt: once more?I viewed the ocean green.?And looked far forth, yet little saw?Of what had else been seen--
Like one that on a lonesome road?Doth walk in fear and dread,?And having once turned round walks on,?And turns no more his head;?Because he knows, a frightful fiend?Doth close behind him tread.
But soon there breathed a wind on me,?Nor sound nor motion made:?Its path was not upon the sea,?In ripple or in shade.
It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek?Like a meadow-gale of spring--?It mingled strangely with my fears,?Yet it felt like