I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked 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 load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their

limbs,

Nor rot nor reek did they:

The look with which they looked on

me

Had never passed away.

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,

And yet I could not die.

And envieth that they should live, and so many

lie dead.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead

men.

liness and

In his lone- The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide:

fixedness

he yearneth

towards the Softly she was going up, journeying

Moon, and And a star or two beside

the stars

that still

sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere 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.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;

But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

By the light Beyond the shadow of the ship,

of the Moon

he behold

eth God's

I watched the water-snakes:

creatures of They moved in tracks of shining white,

the great

calm.

And when they reared, the elfish light

Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

They coiled and swam ; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

Their beau-O happy living things! no tongue happiness. Their beauty might declare:

ty and their

A spring of love gushed from my heart, He blesseth And I blessed them unaware. Sure my kind saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware.

them in his heart.

Oн sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given!

She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,

That had so long remained,

By grace of the holy Mother, the

ancient Ma

I dreamt that they were filled with dew; riner is re

And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,

My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,

And still my body drank.

freshed with rain.

I moved, and could not feel my

limbs :

I was so light-almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.

He heareth And soon I heard a roaring wind:

sounds and

seeth strange

sights and

commotions

in the sky and the element.

It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,

The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,

And the sails did sigh like sedge;

And the rain poured 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,
A river steep and wide.

The bodies The loud wind never reached the of the ship's

crew are

inspired,

ship,

and the ship Yet now the ship moved on!

moves on;

Beneath the lightning and the Moon

The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all

uprose,

Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a 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!" "Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!

But not by the souls of

the men, nor by demons

'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, of earth or

Which to their corses came again,

But a troop of spirits blest:

middle air, but by a blessed troop of an

gelic spirits, sent down

For when it dawned-they dropped their by the invo

arms,

And clustered round the mast;

Sweet sounds rose slowly through their

mouths,

And from their bodies passed.

cation of the guardian saint.