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 a thousand thousand slimy things I looked upon the rotting sea, I looked upon the rotting deck, I looked to heaven, and tried to pray; A wicked whisper came, and made I closed my lids, and kept them close, Mr. Wordsworth. It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his sister, n the autumn of 1797, that this poem was planned, and n part composed. But the ancient Ma riner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horri ble penance. He despiseth the creatures of the calm. And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead. But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men. In his loneliness and fixedness he yearnetli towards the journeying moon, and the stars that 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, The look with which they looked on me An orphan's curse would drag to hell 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 no where did abide : Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside 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 Her beams bemocked the sultry main, Like April hoar-frost spread; But where the ship's huge shadow lay, Beyond the shadow of the ship, esk They moved in tracks of shining white, Fell off in hoary flakes. Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, O happy living things! no tongue A spring of love gushed from my heart, The selfsame moment I could pray; God's crea tures of the great calm. Their beauty and their happiness. He blesseth them in his heart. The spell begins to break. And from my neck so free The albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea. PART V. On sleep! it is a gentle thing, To Mary Queen the praise be given! By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is re freshed with rain. He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the eleinent. 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: 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 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 loud wind never reached the ship, Yet now the ship moved on! They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, It had been strange, even in a dream, 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 The body and I pulled at one rope, "I fear thee, ancient Mariner!" The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on; But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint. |