For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow :

Ah, wretch! said they, the bird to slay
That made the breeze to blow !

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious sun uprist;

Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist:

'T was right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'T was sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

mariner for killing the bird of good luck.

But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus

make themselves accomplices in the crime.

The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward even till it reaches the line. The ship bath been suddenly becalmed.

The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody sun at noon

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the moon.

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

And the a batross begins to be avenged.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout,
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

A spirit had And some in dreams assured were

followed

them, one of Of the spirit that plagued us so;

the invisible

inhabitants Nine fathom deep he had followed us

of this plan

et, neither From the land of mist and snow.

departed

souls nor

angels concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or ele ment without one or more.

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung.

PART III.

round his neck.

The an

cient mar

THERE passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!

How glazed each weary eye,

iner behold. When, looking westward, I beheld

eth a sign in

the element A something in the sky.

afar of.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;

It moved, and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape I wist,
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged, and tacked, and veered.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could not laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood;
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A. sail! a sail!

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call;
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

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 was wellnigh done;
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun;

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

And straight the sun was flecked with b: rs, (Heaven's mother send us grace!)

At its near.
er ap-
proach, it
seemeth
him to be a
chip, and at
a dear ran-
som he
freeth his
speech from
the bonds
of thirst.

A flash of joy.

And horror follows; for can it be a ship that

comes onward without wind or

tide ?

It seemeth him but the ske.eton of a ship.

are seen as

As if through a dungeon-grate he peer a
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?

And its ribs Are those her ribs through which the sun
bars on the Did peer, as through a grate ?

face of the

setting sun. And is that woman all her crew?

The spectre

Woman and Is that a Death? and are there two?

her death

mate, and Is Death that woman's mate ?

no other, on

board the skeleton ship.

like crew.

Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Like vessel, Her locks were yellow as gold;
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Life-in

Death and The naked hulk alongside came,
Death have And the twain were casting dice;

diced for the

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

and she (the

!atter) win

neth the ancient mariner.

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out ; within the At one stride comes the dark;

No twilight

courts of the sun.

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, Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night

The steersman'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
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.

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!
And every soul it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my crossbow !

One after another,

His shipmates drop down dead,

But Life-inDeath begins her work on the ancient mariner.

PART IV.

"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, And thy skinny hand, so brown."

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.

The wedding-guest feareth that

a spirit is talking to him;