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.

PART VII.

The hermit of the wood,

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.

510

515

He kneels at morn, and noon,

and eve

520

He hath a cushion plump:

It is the moss that wholly hides

The rotted old oak-stump.

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,

"Why, this is strange, I trow!

Where are those lights so many and fair, 525
That signal made but now?"

Approacheth
the ship
with wonder. And they answered not our cheer!

"Strange, by my faith!" the hermit said—

แ

The planks look warped! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!

530

I never saw aught like to them,

Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag

My forest-brook along;

When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

535

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!"

540

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, 550 The ancient

Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found

Within the pilot's boat.

555

Mariner is saved in 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,

560

565

The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth

the hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls

on him.

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 crossed his brow.

"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?"

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woful agony,

570

575

What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden-bower the bride

And bride-maids singing are:

And hark the little vesper bell,

Which biddeth me to prayer!

O wedding-guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea`:

So lonely 'twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

"Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company !—

The Polar spirit's fellow demons, the invisible inhabitants of the

With a short uneasy motion

Backwards and forwards half her length

With a short uneasy motion.