THE ANCIENT MARINER.

How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.

He kneels at morn, at noon,
He hath a cushion plump:

and eve

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?'

'Strange, by my faith,' the hermit said,

And they answered not our cheer!

The planks look 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 lag

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.

'I am afeared.'.

Push on, push on!'

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.

241

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, 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.

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,

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.

'Oh, 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,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land:
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me :
To him my tale I teach.

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 seemèd there to be.

Oh, sweeter than the marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company!

To talk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay.

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell,
To thee, thou wedding-guest!
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small :
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all,"-

243

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone; and now the wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn :

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS.

W. C. BRYANT.

THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the

year,

Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.

Heap'd in the hollows of the grove, the autumn leaves lie dead:

They rustle to the eddying gust, and to the rabbit's

tread.

The robin and the wren are flown, and from the shrubs the jay,

And from the wood-top calls the crow through all the gloomy day.

The wind-flower and the violet, they perish'd long

ago,

And the brier-rose and the orchis died amid the

summer glow;

But on the hill the golden-rod, and the aster in the wood,

And the yellow sun-flower by the brook in autumn beauty stood,

Till fell the frost from the clear, cold heaven, as falls

the plague ou men,

And the brightness of their smile was gone, from upland, glade, and glen.

CAVALRY CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA.

245

And now, when comes the calm mild day, as still such days will come,

To call the squirrel and the bee from out their winter home;

When the sound of dropping nuts is heard, though all the trees are still,

And twinkle in the smoky light the waters of the rill,

The south wind searches for the flowers whose fragrance late he bore;

And sighs to find them in the wood and by the stream no more.

CAVALRY CHARGE AT BALAKLAVA.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

HALF a league, half a league, half a league onward!
All in the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred!
"Forward the Light Brigade!-Charge the guns!"
Nolan said.

Into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred.
"Forward the Light Brigade!"-Was there a man
dismayed?

Not though the soldiers knew some one had blundered:

Theirs not to make reply, theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die!

Into the Valley of Death rode the Six Hundred.

Cannon to right of them, cannon to left of them, Cannon in front of them volleyed and thundered; Stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode, and well

Into the jaws of death-into the mouth of hellrode the Six Hundred.