Samuel Coleridge - The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition)

A spring of love gusht from my heart,

And I bless’d them unaware!

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I bless’d 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.

V.

O sleep, it is a gentle thing

Belov’d 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 remain’d,

I dreamt that they were fill’d with dew

And when I awoke it rain’d.

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 mov’d 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 danc’d between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud;

And the sails did sigh like sedge:

And the rain pour’d 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 reach’d the Ship,

Yet now the Ship mov’d on!

Beneath the lightning and the moon

The dead men gave a groan.

They groan’d; they stirr’d, they all uprose,

Nor spake, nor mov’d their eyes:

It had been strange, even in a dream

To have seen those dead men rise,

The helmsman steerd, the ship mov’d on;

Yet never a breeze up-blew;

The Mariners all gan work the ropes,

Where they were wont to do:

They rais’d 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 pull’d 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 dawn’d — they dropp’d their arms,

And cluster’d round the mast:

Sweet sounds rose slowly thro’ their mouths

And from their bodies pass’d.”

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,

Then darted to the sun:

Slowly the sounds came back again

Now mix’d, now one by one.

Sometimes a dropping from the sky

I heard the Skylark sing;

Sometimes all little birds that are

How they seem’d 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 ceas’d: 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 silently sail’d on

Yet never a breeze did breathe:

Slowly and smoothly went the Ship

Mov’d 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 fix’d 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 into a swound.

How long in that same fit I lay,

I have not to declare;

But ere my living life return’d,

I heard and in my soul discern’d

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 lay’d full low

The harmless Albatross.”

”The spirit who ‘bideth by himself

In the land of mist and snow,

He lov’d the bird that lov’d 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.

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 fix’d on me their stony eyes

That in the moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,

Had never pass’d away;

I could not draw my eyes from theirs

Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapt: once more

I view’d the ocean green,

And look’d 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 turn’d round, walks on

And turns no more his head:

Because he knows, a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breath’d a wind on me,

Nor sound nor motion made:

Its path was not upon the sea

In ripple or in shade.

It rais’d my hair, it fann’d 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 sail’d softly too:

Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze —

On me alone it blew.

O dream of joy! is this indeed

The lighthouse top I see?

Is this the Hill? Is this the Kirk?

Is this mine own countrée?

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 steep’d 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 turn’d my eyes upon the deck —

O Christ! what saw I there?

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat;