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 turn'd 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.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

The Hermit of the Wood,

PART THE SEVENTH.

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 marineres

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 near'd: 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 look warped! and see those

sails,

How thin they are and sere!

I never saw ought like to them,

Unless perchance it were

The 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 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.

Approacheth

the ship with wonder.

D 2

The ship suddenlysinketh.

The ancient
Mariner is

saved in the

Pilot's boat,

Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread:

It reach'd the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

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

Like one that hath been seven days drown'd,
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!

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" The Hermit cross'd his brow.

"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee sayWhat manner of man art thou?"

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd

With a woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth

the Hermit to shrieve him;

and the pe

nance of life falls on him.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.

And ever and anon through

out his future

life an agony constraineth

him to travel