She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
And she forgave me that I gazed

Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

Which crazed this bold and lovely Knight, And that he crossed the mountain woods, Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade,
And sometimes starting up at once,
In green and sunny glade,

There came, and looked him in the face,

An angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew, it was a fiend,

This miserable Knight!

And how, unknowing what he did,

He leap'd amid a murd'rous band,

And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept and clasped his knees, And how she tended him in vain

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn, that crazed his brain :

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay;

His dying words-But when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My falt'ring voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve,

The music, and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng!
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love and maiden shame;
And, like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside;
As conscious of my look, she stepped-
Then suddenly with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

She half enclosed me with her arms,
She pressed me with a meek embrace;
And bending back her head looked up,
And gazed upon my face.

'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art That I might rather feel than see

The swelling of her heart.

I calmed her fears; and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride!

THE ANCIENT MARINER

PART I.

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three :

By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye

Now wherefore stoppest me?

The bridegroom's doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin ;

The guests are met, the feast is set,-
May'st hear the merry din."

But still he holds the wedding-guest-
"There was a ship," quoth he-
"Nay, if thou'st got a laughsome tale,
Mariner! come with me."

He holds him with his skinny hand,

56

Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard loon! my staff shall make thee skip."

Or

He holds him with his glittering eye-
The wedding-guest stood still
And listens like a three years' child;
The Mariner hath his will

The wedding-guest sate on a stone,

He cannot choose but hear:

And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the light-house top.

The sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he:

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea

The wedding guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,

Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her go
The merry minstrelsy.

The wedding guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear:
And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner :

"But now the north wind came more fierce, There came a tempest strong!

And southward still for days and weeks

Like chaff we drove along.

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice mast-high came floating by
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts

Did send a dismal sheen;

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled A wild and ceaseless sound.

At length did cross an albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

The Mariners gave it biscuit-worms,
And round and round it flew :

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through.

And a good south wind sprung up behind,
The albatross did follow;

And every day for food or play

Came to the Mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud on mast or shroud

It perched for vespers nine,

Whiles all the night through fog-smoke white Glimmer'd the white moon-shine."