"Water, water, every where,

And all the boards did shrink:
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

"The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

"About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.
"And some in dreams assured were
Of the spirit that plagued us so ;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

"Ah! well a day, what evil looks
Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung."-vol. ii. p. 6, 7.

We know nothing in modern poetry more appallingly sublime than the following description of their discovery of a sail, their disappointment and death, with the exception of the Ancient Mariner:

"There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye,
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

"At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

"A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared;
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tacked and veered.

"With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could not laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

"With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call :
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

"See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;

Without a breeze, without a tide,

She steadies with upright keel!

"The western wave was all a-flame.
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

"And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace)

As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

"Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres ?

"Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer as through a grate?

And is that Woman all her crew?

Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that woman's mate?

"Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold :
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare, Life-in-Death was she
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

"The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;

'The game is done! I've won, I've won! Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

"The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

"We listened and looked sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night,

The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip-
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The horned Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

"One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

"Four times fifty living men,

(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)

With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,

They dropped down one by one.

"The souls did from their bodies fly,

They fled to bliss or woe!

And every soul, it passed me by,

Like the whizz of my cross-bow !"-vol. ii. p. 7—10.

Thus alone, the Ancient Mariner, with his soul in agony-haunted by the dead man's eye, fruitlessly striving to pray-at length looked upon the sea snakes " beyond the shadow of the ship," and unconsciously admired and blessed them. Upon this hinged his deliverance. He had suffered for his cruelty to one of God's creatures; he now, on the return of benevolence to his bosom, was forgiven. Of the sea-snakes he says,

"O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare :

A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

"The selfsame moment I could pray ;
And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea."-vol. ii. p. 13.

The arrival of rain to refresh his parched limbs-of a breeze to rescue his vessel-of auspicious spirits, to animate for a time the dead men's bodies, and enable them to work the ship-their entrance into the haven of the Ancient Mariner's country-the alarm of the pilot and hermit of the wood at the sight of the vessel, and the evanishment of the spirits-the sinking of the ship-the rescue of the Mariner in the pilot's boat-his confession of his crimehis absolution-all these fanciful incidents are told with surpassing power.

Of course, in all sober reason such a poem must be considered but the play of a wild and romantic fancy. It is a tale whose moral is the duty of love and kindness to all God's creatures;

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."-vol. ii. p. 26.

All the mariner's sufferings arose from his cruelty to the albatross, and his instant deliverance followed upon his unconsciously loving and blessing the water-snakes around him. Yet, puerile though our didactic description of it may seem, there is nothing such in the poem. None but the most vigorous conception could have depicted it. We defy any one of a strong imagination to read what we have already quoted, without this acknowledgment. We must nevertheless dispute the fitness of the whole of the Ancient Mariner, for the inculcation of a moral. If this was in the least Mr. Coleridge's intention, he erred in the choice of instruments. When fiction has this object, its incidents should be the probable. The parables of the divine Redeemer invariably observed this rule. There were no avenues open for scepticism. But as a tale of romance, as an indulgence of that element of our being, which is ever claiming affinity with unearthly and supernatural intelligences-it has every characteristic of terror and sublimity.

We have so extensively quoted from the Ancient Mariner, that we must very briefly advert to Christabel. We think it far more congenial with the poet's own disposition. It is quite as romantic as the other, and more gentle.

Christabel, the lovely daughter of Sir Leoline, is a victim to the witchery of a young Lady Geraldine, whom she had hospitably rescued from her ravishers. Geraldine professes to be the child of Lord Roland de Vaux, the earliest but estranged friend of Sir Leoline. The potent spell so entirely succeeds, that the innocent object of her father's love incurs his sudden detestation. This is the simple plot of the poem. It is purposely and wisely left unfinished, for its completion must have dispersed the mystery which was essential to its supernatural character. We are left in ignorance whether Geraldine was the daughter of Lord Roland: whether she really had been violently abducted from her father's castle whether Sir Leoline avenged her, or in the attempt was ruined: whether the spell upon Christabel was withdrawn. It is an exquisite fragment. To use Mr. Coleridge's favourite expression, the poem is " objective" more than any other of his pieces.

Christabel in the wood at midnight-the description of Geraldine-Christabel's chamber-the old baron's indignation at Geraldine's wrong—and his bard's dream-all deserve quotation, if our limits permitted us. The following is the scene of Christabel in the wood:

"Is the night chilly and dark?

The night is chilly, but not dark.
The thin gray cloud is spread on high,
It covers but not hides the sky.
The moon is behind, and at the full;
And yet she looks both small and dull.
The night is chill, the cloud is gray:
'Tis a month before the month of May,
And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

"The lovely lady, Christabel,

Whom her father loves so well,
What makes her in the wood so late,
A furlong from the castle gate?
She had dreams all yesternight
Of her own betrothed knight;
And she in the midnight wood will
For the weal of her lover that's far away.

pray

"She stole along, she nothing spoke,
The sighs she heav'd were soft and low,
And naught was green upon the oak,
But moss and rarest miseltoe :
She kneels beneath the huge oak tree,
And in silence prayeth she.

"The lady sprang up suddenly,
The lovely lady Christabel !
It moaned as near, as near can be,
But what it is, she cannot tell-
On the other side it seems to be,
Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.
"The night is chill, the forest bare

;

Is it the wind that moaneth bleak?
There is not wind enough in the air
Το move away the ringlet curl
From the lovely lady's cheek-
There is not wind enough to twirl
The one red leaf, the last of its clan,
That dances as often as dance it can,
Hanging so light, and hanging so high,

On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky.

"Hush, beating heart of Christabel !
Jesu, Maria, shield her well!