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But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion-
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

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.

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;

But ere my living life returned,
I heard, and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

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The Polar Spirit's fellowdemons, 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.

PART VI.

First Voice.

But tell me, tell me! speak again,

Thy soft response renewing

What makes that ship drive on so fast?

What is the ocean doing?

Second Voice.

Still as a slave before his lord,

The ocean hath no blast;

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I woke, and we were sailing on

As in a gentle weather:

'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together,

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes
That in the Moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:

I could not draw my eyes from theirs,

Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapt: once more

I viewed the ocean green,

And looked far north, yet little saw

Of what had else been seen-

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,

The supernatural motion is retarded; the mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew.

The curse is finally expiated;

And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;

Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:

Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my

cheek

Like a meadow-gale of spring-
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze-
On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?

Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did
pray-

O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn !

And on the bay the moonlight lay,

And the shadow of the moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

And the ancient mariner beholdeth his native country.

The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,

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Those crimson shadows were:

I turned my eyes upon the deck-
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,

On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand:

It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;

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 turned 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.

And appear in their own forms of light.

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 mariners
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 neared: I heard them talk,

"Why, this is strange, I trow!

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

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Strange, by my faith!" the hermit said— "And they answered not our cheer!

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

I never saw aught like to them,

Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lay

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)

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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.

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:

It reached 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 drowned
My body lay afloat;

Approacheth the ship with wonder.

The ship suddenly sinketh.

The ancient mariner is saved in the pilot's boat.

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