*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, & 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,

*Like vessel, like crew!

Death & Life-inDeath have diced for the ship's crew, & she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.

No twilight within the courts of the Sun

Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened & looked sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, & 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
Cij

The

**At the rising of the Moon,

*One after another,

+His shipmates drop down dead,

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.

But Life-in-Death The souls did from their bodies fly,

begins her work on

the ancient Mariner.

They fled to bliss or woe!

And every soul, it passed me by,

Like the whizz of

my cross-bow!

PART

I fear thee & 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

I closed my lids, & kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky & the sea, & the sea & the sky

Lay like a load on my weary eye,

And the dead were at my feet.

The

"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 the 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 & awful red.

Beyond

*But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

In his loneliness & fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, & the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; & everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, & is their appointed rest, & their native country & their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected & yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.