The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot chuse but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

And now the STORM-BLAST came, and he

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,

And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow

Still treads the shadow of his foe

And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,

And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

The weddingguest heareth the bridal music; but the mariner continueth his tale.

The ship drawn by a storm toward the south pole.

The land of And through the drifts the

ice, and of fearful

sounds, where no living

thing was to

be seen.

Till a great sea-bird,

called the Albatross,

Did send a dismal sheen:

snowy clifts

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—

The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross :
Thorough the fog it came;

came through As if it had been a Christian soul,

the snow-fog,

and was received with

great joy and hospitality.

We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.

The ice did split with a thunder-fit;

The helmsman steered us through!

And lo! the And a good south wind sprung up behind;

Albatross

proveth a bird The Albatross did follow,

of good omen,

and followeth And

the ship as it every day, for food or play,

returned

northward, through fog and floating

ice.

Came to the mariners' hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white Moon-shine.

"God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus !-
Why look'st thou so ?"-With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the

pious bird of good omen.

THE RIME

OF

THE ANCIENT MARINER.

PART THE SECOND.

THE SUN now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he,

Still hid in mist, and on the left

Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,

But no sweet bird did follow,

Nor any day for food or play

His ship

mates cry out against the ancient Mari

Came to the mariners' hollo!

And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe:

ner, for killing For all averred, I had killed the bird

the bird of good luck.

That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:

Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free:

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.

The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean and sails northward, even till it reaches the Line.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, The ship hath

been suddenly becalmed.

'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,

The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.