One after another, His ship-mates drop down dead; But LIFE-INDEATH begins her work on the ancient Mariner. The wedding-guest feareth that a spirit is talking to him; But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horrible penance. He despiseth the creatures of the calm, And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead. One after one, by the star-dogg'd Moon Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang, Four times fifty living men, And every soul, it passed me by, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. PART THE FOURTH. "I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand. I fear thee and thy glittering eye, Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things I look'd upon the rotting sea, I look'd 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 cloud, on my weary eye, And the dead were at my feet. The cold sweat melted from their limbs, The look with which they look'd on me 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, The moving Moon went up the sky, And a star or two beside Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, Beyond the shadow of the ship, They moved in tracks of shining white, Within the shadow of the ship I watch'd their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled and swam; and every track O happy living things! no tongue A spring of love gusht from my heart, Sure my kind saint took pity on me, The self same moment I could pray; The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. PART THE FIFTH. OH SLEEP! it is a gentle thing, Belov'd from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given ! 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 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. By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm. Their beauty and their happiness. He blesseth them in his heart. The spell begins to break. 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 element. The bodies of the ship's crew are inspirited, and the ship moves on; The silly buckets on the deck, I dreamt that they were filled with dew; My lips were wet, my throat was cold, Sure I had drunken in my dreams,. I moved, and could not feel my limbs : I thought that I had died in sleep, And soon I heard a roaring wind: It did not come anear; But with its sound it shook the sails, The upper air burst into life! The wan stars danced between. And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; And the rain pour'd 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, The loud wind never reached the ship, Beneath the lightening and the Moon They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose, It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. The helmsman steered, the ship moved on ; Yet never 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 !" For when it dawned-they dropped their arms, Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Slowly the sounds came back again, Sometimes a-dropping from the sky 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 Till noon we quietly sailed on, Under the keel nine fathom deep, The sails at noon left off their tune, And the ship stood still also. 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, 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. But not by the souls of men, nor by dæmons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint. 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 Polar Spirit's fellow-dæmons, the invisible inhabitants 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 accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward. The Mariner hath been cast into a trance for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward, faster than human life could endure. How long in that same fit I lay, But ere my living life returned, "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man? With his cruel bow he laid full low, The harmless Albatross. 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." The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. PART THE SIXTH. FIRST VOICE. "BUT tell me, tell me! speak again, What makes that ship drive on so fast? SECOND VOICE. Still as a slave before his lord, If he may know which way to go; FIRST VOICE. But why drives on that ship so fast, SECOND VOICE. The air is cut away before, And closes from behind. Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high ! For slow and slow that ship will go, When the Mariner's trance is abated." |