the Ma

riner awakes;

and his penance begins anew.

'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.

The curse And now this spell was snapt: once more I viewed the ocean green,

is finally

expiated.

And looked far forth, yet little saw

Of what else had 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 a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze-
On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?

Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?

We drifted o'er the harbor-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbor-bay was clear as glass,

So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,

And the shadow of the moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,

That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light
Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colors came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

And the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.

The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,

and appear in their own forms of light.

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,

On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,

It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,

No voice did they impart—

No voice; but oh! the silence sank

Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,

I heard the Pilot's cheer;

My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:

Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy

The dead men could not blast.

I saw a third-I heard his voice:

It is the Hermit good!

He singeth loud his godly hymns

That he makes in the wood.

He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood.

PART VII.

THIS Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.

How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with mariners

That come from a far countree.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve―
He hath a cushion plump;

It is the moss that wholly hides

The rotted old oak stump.

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,

Why this is strange I trow!

Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now ?”

"Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said-
"And they answered not our cheer!

The planks looked warped! and see those sails,

How thin they are and sere!

I never saw aught like to them,

Unless perchance it were

"Brown skeletons of leaves that lag

My forest brook along;

When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,

That eats the she-wolf's young."

"Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look-
(The Pilot made reply)

I am a-feared"-" Push on, push on!"
Said the hermit cheerily.

The Hermit of the wood.

Approacheth the ship with wonder,

The ship suddenly sinketh.

The ancient Mariner is

saved in

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;

The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:

It reached the ship, it split the bay ;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,

the Pilot's Like one that hath been seven days

boat.

drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round ;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked

And fell down in a fit;

The holy Hermit raised his eyes,

And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,

Who now doth crazy go,

Laughed 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 my own countree,
I stood on the firm land!