See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;

Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel !

The western wave was all a-flame.

The day

Almost

was well nigh done!

upon the western wave

Rested the broad bright sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the sun.

165

170

And straight the sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the 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?

175

180

A flash of joy;

And horror follows. For can it be a ship that

comes on

ward without wind or tide?

It seemeth him but the skeleton of a

ship.

And its ribs

are seen as bars on the 185 face of the setting sun. The spectrewoman and her deathmate, and no other on board the

skeletonship.

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.

The naked hulk alongside came,

And the twain were casting dice;

"The game is done! I've won! I've won!" Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;

At one stride comes the dark;

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

At the rising We listened and looked sideways up!

of the moon.

One after another,

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night,

190

195

200

205

The steerman's face by his lamp gleamed

white;

From the sails the dew did drip

Till clomb above the eastern bar

The horned moon, with one bright star 210

Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,

And cursed me with his eye.

215

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!

His shipmates drop down dead.

220 But Life-inDeath begins her work on the ancient Mariner.

PART IV.

"I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner!

I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou are long, and lank, and brown,

As is the ribbed sea-sand.1

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.”.
Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest!
This body dropt not down.

The wedding guest

225 feareth that a spirit is talking to him.

But the an230 cient Mari

1 For the last two 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."

ner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate

his horrible penance.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,

Alone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took rity on
My soul in agony.

He despiseth The many men, so beautiful!

the creatures

of the calm.

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

But the

curse liveth for him in

And they all dead did lie :

And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;

I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

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;

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240

245

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 :

250

The look with which they looked on me

Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell

255

the eye of the dead men.

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 no where did abide:

Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside

260

In his loneliness and fixedness he

265 yearneth towards the journeying moon, and the stars that still sojourn,

yet still move onward; and every where the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are 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 burned 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.

270

By the light of the moon he beholdeth God's crea

tures of the

great calm.

275