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primitive in its ceremonies, unequalled in its liturgical England, in a tolerating age, has shown herself emi forms; that our Church, which has kindled and dis- nently tolerant, and far more so, both in Spirit and in played more bright and burning lights of Genius and fact, that many of her most bitter opponents, who Learning, than all other Protestant churches since profess to deem toleration itself an insult on the the Reformation, was (with the single exception of rights of mankind! As to myself, who not only know the times of Laud and Sheldon) least intolerant, the Church-Establishment to be tolerant, but who when all Christians unhappily deemed a species of see in it the greatest, if not the sole safe bulwark of intolerance their religious duty; that Bishops of our Toleration, I feel no necessity of defending or palchurch were among the first that contended against liating oppressions under the two Charleses, in order this error; and finally, that since the Reformation, to exclaim with a full and fervent heart, ESTO PER when tolerance became a fashion, the Church of PETUA!

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

IN SEVEN PARTS.

Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit? et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera? Quid agunt? quæ loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabulâ, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernæ vitæ minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus.-T. BURNET: Archeol. Phil. p. 68.

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The Mariner tells

how the ship sailed southward

with a good wind

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone,
He cannot choose but hear;

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

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Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

tinueth his tale.

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and The ship drawn
he
by a storm toward
the south pole.

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dripping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the
blast,

And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and
snow,

Aud it grew wondrous cold;
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

The ship was cheer'd, the harbor And through the drifts the snowy clifts The land of ice,

clear'd,

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!

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:

And he shone bright, and on the right It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and

and fair weather,

Went down into the sea.

till it reached the line

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon

breast,

howl'd,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross :

The Wedding-Guest here beat his Therough the fog it came ;

For he heard the loud bassoon.

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

70

and of fearful sounds, where no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great seabird, called the Albatross, came through the snowfog, and was roceived with great joy and hospital

And lo the Al-
batross proveth
a bird of good
omea, and follow-

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steer'd us through!

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

And a good south-wind sprung up Water, water, everywhere,

behind;

The Albatross did follow,

eth the ship as it And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo!

returned northward through fog and floating ice.

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good

omen.

His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner,

for killing the bird

of good-luck.

But when the fog cleared off, they

justify the same,

and thus make

themselves ac

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perch'd for vespers nine;

And all the boards did shrink:
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Whiles all the night, through fog- Upon the slimy sea.
smoke white,

Glimmer'd the white moon-shine.

"God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee
thus!

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

Why look'st thou so?"-With my And some in dreams assured were

cross-bow

I shot the ALBATROSS.

PART II.

Of the spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had follow'd us
From the land of mist and snow.

And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

A spirit had followed them: one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet,-neither departed souls nor angels; con

THE Sun now rose upon the right: cerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic
Out of the sea came he,

Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.

And the good south-wind still blew And every tongue, through utter

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Nor dim nor red, like God's own THERE pass'd a weary time. Each

head,
The glorious Sun uprist:

Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird complices in the That brought the fog and mist. "T was right, said they, such birds to slay

crime.

The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the

Pacific Ocean and

That bring the fog and mist.

throat

Was parch'd, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye,
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

At first it seem'd a little speck,

The fair breeze blew, the white foam And then it seem'd a mist;

flew,

The furrow follow'd free;

We were the first that ever burst

sails northward.

Into that silent sea.

even till it reaches the Line.

The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.

It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it near'd and near❜d:

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt As if it dodged a water-sprite,

down,

"T was sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

It plunged and tack'd and veer'd.

The shipmates, in their sore distress would fain throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner :-in sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.

The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off

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A flash of joy.

With throats unslaked, with black One after one, by the star-dogged One after anlips baked,

Agape they heard me call;

Gramercy! they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

And horror fol- See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
lows: for can it be
Hither to work us weal;
a ship, that comes
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

onward without

wind or tide ?

It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.

And its ribs are

seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun.

The spectrewoman and her death-mate, and

no other on board the skeleton-ship. Like vessel, like crew!

The western wave was all a flame,
The day was well-nigh done,
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;
When that strange shape drove sud-
denly

Betwixt us and the Sun.

Moon,

Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turn'd his face with a ghastly

pang,

And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan),
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropp'd down one by one.
The souls did from their bodies fly,-
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it pass'd me by
Like the whizz of my CROSS-BOW!

PART IV.

"I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner!

And straight the Sun was fleck'd I fear thy skinny hand!

with bars,

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other,

His shipmates drop down dead

But Life-in

Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.

The weddingguest feareth that a spirit is talking

And thou art long, and lank, and to him;

brown,

As is the ribb'd sea-sand.*

"I fear thee and thy glittering eye,

And thy skinny hand so brown."

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding- But the ancient

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This body dropt not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on

Are those her ribs through which the My soul in agony.

Sun

Did peer, as through a grate;

And is that woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH, and are there two?
IS DEATH that woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were
free,

Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-Mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was
she,

Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Death, and Life- The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice; “The game is done! I've won, I've

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The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy
things

Lived on; and so did I.

I look'd upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
And there the dead men lay.
I look'd upon the rotting deck,

I look'd to Heaven, and tried to pray ;
But or ever a prayer had gush'd,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea
and the sky,

Lay like a load on my weary eye
And the dead were at my feet.

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Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate bis horrible penance.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm.

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead

men.

For the two last lines of this stanza, I am indebted to Mr. Wordsworth. It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his sister, in the Autumn of 1797 that this Poem was planned, and in part composed.

In his loneliness

and fixedness he

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The upper air burst into life!

The moving Moon went up the sky, And a hundred fire-flags sheen,

yearneth towards And nowhere did abide :

the journeying

Moon, and the

stars that still so

Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside

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By the light of the Moon he beboldeth God's creatures of the

great calm.

Their beauty and their happiness.

He blesseth them in his beart.

Her beams bemock'd the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;

But where the ship's huge shadow
lay,

The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watch'd the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining
white,

And when they rear'd, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watch'd their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coil'd and swam; and every
track

Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gush'd from my
heart,

And I bless'd them unaware:

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 pour'd down from one
The Moon was at its edge.
black cloud;

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.

in the sky and

the element.

The loud wind never reach'd the The bodies of the
ship,

Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groan'd, they stirr'd, 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 steer'd, the ship
moved on,

Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,

Sure my kind saint took pity on me, Where they were wont to do;
And I bless'd them unaware.

The spell begins The self-same moment I could pray;

to break.

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I moved, and could not feel my Around, around, flew each sweet

limbs :

I was so light-almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,

And was a blessed ghost.

sound,

Then darted to the Sun;

Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mix'd, now one by one.

ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;

But not by the souls of the men,

nor by dæmons of

earth or middle

air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the

guardian saint.

The lonesome spirit from the south-pole carries

on the ship as far as the line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.

Sometimes, a-drooping from the sky,

I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seem'd to fill the sea and
air,

With their sweet jargoning!

PART VI.

FIRST VOICE.

BUT tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing-
What makes that ship drive on so
fast?

And now 't was like all instruments, What is the OCEAN doing?

Now like a lonely flute;

And now it is an angel's song,

That makes the Heavens be mute.

SECOND VOICE.

Still as a slave before his lord,
The OCEAN hath no blast;

His great bright eye most silently

It ceased; yet still the sails made on Up to the Moon is cast

A pleasant noise till noon,

A noise like of a hidden brook

In the leafy month of June,

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.

That to the sleeping woods all night See, brother, see! how graciously

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 fix'd her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion-
Backwards and forwards half
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.

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in his wrong;

and two of them

relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the an

cient Mariner hath been accord

ed to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.

Two VOICES in the air.

her

"Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the
man?

By him who died on cross,

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 fix'd on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they
died,

Had never pass'd away:

I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

The Mariner bath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive north ward faster than human life could endure

The supernatural motion is retard

ed; the Mariner

awakes, and his penance begins

anew.

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I view'd the ocean green,
And look'd far forth, yet little saw

With his cruel bow he laid full low Of what had else been seen-
The harmless Albatross.

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