But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! A savage place! as holy and enchanted As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon-lover! And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething, As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, A mighty fountain momently was forced; Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever It flung up momently the sacred river. Five miles meandering with a mazy motion,

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult, Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, "Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise."

BROKEN FRIENDSHIP.

(From Coleridge's "Christabel.")

ALAS! they had been friends in youth:
But whispering tongues can poison truth;
And constancy lives in realms above;

And life is thorny; and youth is vain;
And to be wroth with one we love

Doth work like madness on the brain..
Each spoke words of high disdain

And insult to his heart's best brother;
They parted-ne'er to meet again!

But never either found another
To free the hollow heart from paining-
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,

Like cliffs which had been rent asunder;
A dreary sea now flows between;

But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder,
Shall wholly do away, I ween,

The marks of that which once hath been.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

BY COLERIDGE.

PART THE FIRST.

Ir is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three:

"By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

Mayst hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand, "There was a ship," quoth he.

"Hold off! unhand me, gray beard loon!"
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye-
The Wedding Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

An ancient Mariner meeteth three Gallants bidden to a wedding feast, and detaineth one.

The Wedding Guest is spellbound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.

The Mariner tells

how the ship sailed southward with good wind and fair weather,

till it reached the Line.

The Wedding Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner continueth his tale.

The ship drawn
by a storm toward
the south pole.

The Wedding Guest sat on a stone;
He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,

The bright-eyed Mariner :

The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

The Sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon

The Wedding Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

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 here beat his breast,

Yet he cannot choose 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.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen:

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:
Through the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
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 a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

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 Moonshine.

"God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus ! —

Why look'st thou so?".

I shot the Albatross.

With my crossbow

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,

Came to the mariners' hollo!

The land of ice, and of fearful sounds, where no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great sea bird called the Albatross came through the snow fog and was received with great joy and hospitality.

And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returneth northward, through fog and floating ice.

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.

His shipinates

cry out against the ancient Mari

ner, for killing the

bird of good luck.

But when the fog cleared off, they justified 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.

The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.

And the Albatross

begins to be avenged.

And I had done an hellish thing,
And it would work 'em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird
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.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, '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.

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

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.