"I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht,

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.

"The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:

The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

"An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

"The moving Moon went up the sky,

And nowhere did abide :
Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside

and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.

"Her beams bemocked 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 watched the water-snakes:

They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

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

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and their native as lords that are

By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.

"Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

their happiness.

Their beauty might declare:

"A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware :
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

"The selfsame moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea."

He blesseth them

in his heart.

The spell begins to break.

2 L

By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.

He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the elements.

66

PART V.

"OH Sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

"The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

"My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,

And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light-almost

I thought that I had died in 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,

Where 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:

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

But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the

For when it dawned-they dropped their arms guardian saint.

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.