Oh! dren of joy! is this indeed Is this the hill? is this the kirk? We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, The harbour-bay was clear as glass, 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 And the bay was white with silent light, Full many shapes, that shadows were, A little distance from the prow And the an cient Mariner beholdeth his native coun try. The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies, And appear in their own forms of light. 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 : They stood as signals to the land, 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, The pilot and the pilot's boy, 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. PART VII. THIS hermit good lives in that wood That come from a far countree. He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve— It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old oak-stump. 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, 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, The hermit of the wood, Approacheth the ship with wonder. The ship suddenly sink eth. The ancient saved in the "Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look- I am a-feared "_"Push on, push on!" The boat came closer to the ship, The boat came close beneath the ship, Under the water it rumbled on, 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 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, Laughed loud and long, and all the while "Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see, And now, all in my own countree, The hermit stepped forth from the boat, "O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" The hermit crossed his brow. "Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say— What manner of man art thou?" Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched Which forced me to begin my tale; And then it left me free. Since then, at an uncertain hour, And till my ghastly tale is told, I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; That moment that his face I see, 1 know the man that must hear me : To him my tale 1 teach. |