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 ancient Mariner is saved in the

Pilot's boat.

The ancient
Mariner

earnestly

entreateth the Hermit to

shrieve him; and the penance of life

falls on him.

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

"O 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 woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

And ever and Since then, at an uncertain hour,

anon through

out his future That agony returns;

life an agony

constraineth And till my ghastly tale is told,

him to travel

from land to This heart within me burns.

land.

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 seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

"Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company!—

To walk 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.

And to teach,
by his own
example,
love and
reverence to

all things that
God made and
loveth.

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

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.

CHRISTABEL.