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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 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 bodies of the ship's

crew are

inspirited, and the ship moves on;

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.

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 guar dian saint.

"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 seem'd 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 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.

The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixt 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.

The PolarSpi- How long in that same fit I lay,

rit's fellow

dæmons, the invisible in

habitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient

Mariner hath been accord

ed to the

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.

Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.

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."

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