The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk, 'Why, this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights so many and fair, That signal made but now?' 'Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said 'And they answered not our cheer! The planks looked warped! and see those sails, How thin they are and sere! I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were Brown skeletons of leaves that lag My forest-brook along ; When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, That eats the she-wolf's young.' 'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look (The Pilot made reply) I am a-feared '-'Push on, push on !' The boat came closer to the ship, The boat came close beneath the ship, And straight a sound was heard. Under the water it rumbled on, Still louder and more dread : It reached the ship, it split the bay; Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, Like one that hath been seven days drowned But swift as dreams, myself I found Within the Pilot's boat. Upon the whirl, where sank the ship I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked The holy hermit raised his eyes, I took the oars: the Pilot's boy, Approacheth the ship with wonder. The ship suddenly sinketh. The ancient Mariner is saved in the Pilot's boat. And ever and anon Laughed loud and long, and all the while Ha ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see, And now, all in my own countree, I stood on the firm land! The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man ! 'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say— Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched Which forced me to begin my tale : Since then, at an uncertain hour, throughout And till my ghastly tale is told, his future life an agony constraineth him to travel I pass, like night, from land to land; from land to I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, land, I know the man that must hear me : What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding-guests are there : But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are: O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been So lonely 'twas, that God himself O sweeter than the marriage-feast, 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, 1797. Old men, and babes, and loving friends Farewell, farewell! but this I tell He prayeth best, who loveth best The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Is gone and now the Wedding-Guest He went like one that hath been stunned, A sadder and a wiser man, And to teach CHRISTABEL. PREFACE.* THE first part of the following poem was written in the year 1797, at Stowey, in the county of Somerset. The second part, after my return from Germany, in the year 1800, at Keswick, Cumberland. It is probable, that if the poem had been finished at either of the former periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imitation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggerel version of two monkish Latin hexameters. 'Tis mine and it is likewise yours; But an if this will not do; Let it be mine, good friend! for I I have only to add, that the metre of the Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition, in the nature of the imagery or passion. PART I. TIS the middle of night by the castle clock, *To the edition of 1816. Tu-whit!-Tu-whoo! And hark, again! the crowing cock, Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, She maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; The lovely lady, Christabel, Of her own betrothed knight, And she in the midnight wood will pray She stole along, she nothing spoke, She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, The lady sprang up suddenly, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. The night is chill; the forest bare; |