Each spake 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.

This metrical harmony of Coleridge exercises a sort of fascination even when it is found united to incoherent images and absurd conceptions. Thus, in Khubla Khan, a fragment written from recollections of a dream, we have the following melodious rhapsody:

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 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.

The odes of Coleridge are highly passionate and elevated in conception. That on France was considered by Shelley to be the finest English ode of modern times. The hymn on Chamouni is equally lofty and brilliant. His 'Genevieve' is a pure and exquisite love-poem, without that gorgeous diffuseness which characterises the odes, yet more chastely and carefully finished, and abounding in the delicate and subtle traits of his imagination. Coleridge was deficient in the rapid energy and strong passion necessary for the drama. The poetical beauty of certain passages would not, on the stage, atone for the paucity of action and want of interest in his two plays, though, as works of genius, they vastly excel those of a more recent date which prove highly successful in representation.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

He holds him with his glittering eye-
The wedding-guest stood still,
And listens like a three-years' child;
The mariner hath his will.

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 harbour 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 he 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 dripping 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 cliffs
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,
Thorough 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 mariner's 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.

64

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 mariner's hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work 'em wo;

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.

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 nightmare 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.

wiki

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 wo!
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.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand so brown.'

Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest,
This body dropped 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 gushed,
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 nowhere did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoarfrost 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 self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

PART V.

O 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 woke 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.

339

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 lighthouse 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.