Poems of Coleridge

PART II

  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!  And I had done a 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, 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.

PART III

  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 nor 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!

PART IV

  "I fear thee, ancient Mariner!  I fear thy skinny hand!  And thou art long, and lank, and brown,  As is the ribbed sea-sand.1  I fear thee and thy glittering eye,  And thy skinny hand, so brown."—  Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!  This body dropt not down.  Alone, alone, all, all alone,  Alone on a wide wide sea!  And never a saint took pity on  My soul in agony.  The many men, so beautiful!  And they all dead did lie:  And a thousand thousand slimy things  Lived on; and so did I.  I looked upon the rotting sea,  And drew my eyes away;  I looked upon the rotting deck,  And there the dead men lay.  I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;  But or ever a prayer had gusht,  A wicked whisper came, and made  My heart as dry as dust.  I closed my lids, and kept them close,  And the balls like pulses beat;  For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,  Lay like a load on my weary eye,  And the dead were at my feet.  The cold sweat melted from their limbs,  Nor rot nor reek did they:  The look with which they looked on me  Had never passed away.  An orphan's curse would drag to hell  A spirit from on high;  But oh! more horrible than that  Is a curse in a dead man's eye!  Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,  And yet I could not die.  The moving Moon went up the sky,  And no where did abide:  Softly she was going up,  And a star or two beside—  Her beams bemocked the sultry main,  Like April hoar-frost spread;  But where the ship's huge shadow lay,  The charmed water burnt alway  A still and awful red.  Beyond the shadow of the ship,  I watched the water-snakes:  They moved in tracks of shining white,  And when they reared, the elfish light  Fell off in hoary flakes.  Within the shadow of the ship  I watched their rich attire:  Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,  They coiled and swam; and every track  Was a flash of golden fire.  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.

PART V

  Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,  Beloved from pole to pole!  To Mary Queen the praise be given!  She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,  That slid into my soul.  The silly buckets on the deck,  That had so long remained,  I dreamt that they were filled with dew;  And when I awoke, it rained.  My lips were wet, my throat was cold,  My garments all were dank;  Sure I had drunken in my dreams,  And still my body drank.  I moved, and could not feel my limbs:  I was so light—almost  I thought that I had died in sleep;  And was a blessed ghost.  And soon I heard a roaring wind:  It did not come anear;  But with its sound it shook the sails,  That were so thin and sere.  The upper air burst into life!  And a hundred fire-flags sheen,  To and fro they were hurried about!  And to and fro, and in and out,  The wan stars danced between.  And the coming wind did roar more loud,  And the sails did sigh like sedge;  And the rain poured down from one black cloud;  The Moon was at its edge.  The thick black cloud was cleft, and still  The Moon was at its side:  Like waters shot from some high crag,  The lightning fell with never a jag,  A river steep and wide.  The loud wind never reached the ship,  Yet now the ship moved on!  Beneath the lightning and the Moon  The dead men gave a groan.  They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,  Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;  It had been strange, even in a dream,!  To have seen those dead men rise.  The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;  Yet never a breeze up blew;  The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,  Where they were wont to do;  They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—  We were a ghastly crew.  The body of my brother's son  Stood by me, knee to knee:  The body and I pulled at one rope  But he said nought to me.  "I fear thee, ancient Mariner!"  Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!  'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,  Which to their corses came again,  But a troop of spirits blest:  For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,  And clustered round the mast;  Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,  And from their bodies passed.  Around, around, flew each sweet sound,  Then darted to the Sun;  Slowly the sounds came back again,  Now mixed, now one by one.  Sometimes a-dropping from the sky  I heard the sky-lark sing;  Sometimes all little birds that are,  How they seemed to fill the sea and air  With their sweet jargoning!  And now 'twas like all instruments,  Now like a lonely flute;  And now it is an angel's song,  That makes the heavens be mute.  It ceased; yet still the sails made on  A pleasant noise till noon,  A noise like of a hidden brook  In the leafy month of June,  That to the sleeping woods all night  Singeth a quiet tune.  Till noon we quietly sailed on,  Yet never a breeze did breathe:  Slowly and smoothly went the ship,  Moved onward from beneath.  Under the keel nine fathom deep,  From the land of mist and snow,  The spirit slid: and it was he  That made the ship to go.  The sails at noon left off their tune,  And the ship stood still also.  The Sun, right up above the mast,  Had fixed her to the ocean:  But in a minute she 'gan stir,  With a short uneasy motion—  Backwards and forwards half her length  With a short uneasy motion.  Then like a pawing horse let go,  She made a sudden bound:  It flung the blood into my head,  And I fell down in a swound.  How long in that same fit I lay,  I have not to declare;  But ere my living life returned,  I heard and in my soul discerned  Two voices in the air.  "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man?  By him who died on cross,  With his cruel bow he laid full low  The harmless Albatross.  The spirit who bideth by himself  In the land of mist and snow,  He loved the bird that loved the man  Who shot him with his bow."  The other was a softer voice,  As soft as honey-dew:  Quoth he, "The man hath penance done,  And penance more will do."

PART VI

FIRST VOICE  "But tell me, tell me! speak again,  Thy soft response renewing—  What makes that ship drive on so fast?  What is the ocean doing?"SECOND VOICE  "Still as a slave before his lord,  The ocean hath no blast;  His great bright eye most silently  Up to the Moon is cast—  If he may know which way to go;  For she guides him smooth or grim.  See, brother, see! how graciously  She looketh down on him."FIRST VOICE  "But why drives on that ship so fast,  Without or wave or wind?"SECOND VOICE  "The air is cut away before,  And closes from behind.  Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!  Or we shall be belated:  For slow and slow that ship will go,  When the Mariner's trance is abated."  I woke, and we were sailing on  As in a gentle weather:  'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high,  The dead men stood together.  All stood together on the deck,  For a charnel-dungeon fitter:  All fixed on me their stony eyes,  That in the Moon did glitter.  The pang, the curse, with which they died,  Had never passed away:  I could not draw my eyes from theirs,  Nor turn them up to pray.  And now this spell was snapt: once more  I viewed the ocean green,  And looked far forth, yet little saw  Of what had else been seen—  Like one, that on a lonesome road  Doth walk in fear and dread,  And having once turned round walks on,  And turns no more his head;  Because he knows, a frightful fiend  Doth close behind him tread.  But soon there breathed a wind on me,  Nor sound nor motion made:  Its path was not upon the sea,  In ripple or in shade.  It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek  Like a meadow-gale of spring—  It mingled strangely with my fears,  Yet it felt like a welcoming.  Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,  Yet she sailed softly too:  Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—  On me alone it blew.  Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed  The light-house top I see?  Is this the hill? is this the kirk?  Is this mine own countree?  We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,  And I with sobs did pray—  O let me be awake, my God!  Or let me sleep alway.  The harbour-bay was clear as glass,  So smoothly it was strewn!  And on the bay the moonlight lay,  And the shadow of the Moon.  The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,  That stands above the rock:  The moonlight steeped in silentness  The steady weathercock.  And the bay was white with silent light  Till rising from the same,  Full many shapes, that shadows were,  In crimson colours came.  A little distance from the prow  Those crimson shadows were:  I turned my eyes upon the deck—  Oh, Christ! what saw I there!  Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,  And, by the holy rood!  A man all light, a seraph-man,  On every corse there stood.  This seraph-band, each waved his hand:  It was a heavenly sight!  They stood as signals to the land,  Each one a lovely light;  This seraph-band, each waved his hand,  No voice did they impart—  No voice; but oh! the silence sank  Like music on my heart.  But soon I heard the dash of oars,  I heard the Pilot's cheer;  My head was turned perforce away,  And I saw a boat appear.  The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,  I heard them coming fast:  Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy  The dead men could not blast.  I saw a third—I heard his voice:  It is the Hermit good!  He singeth loud his godly hymns  That he makes in the wood.  He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away  The Albatross's blood.

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1

For the last two lines of this stanza, I am indebted to Mr. Wordsworth. It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his sister, in the autumn of 1797, that this poem was planned, and in part composed. [Note of S. T. C., first printed in Sibylline Leaves.]