THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. IN SEVEN PARTS. FACILE credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit, et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera? Quid agunt quæ loca habitant! Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabulâ, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernæ vitæ minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus. IT is an ancient Mariner, T. BURNET. PART L And he stoppeth one of three. ARCHEOL. PHIL. p. 68. By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me? "The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, The guests are met, the feast is set: He holds him with his skinny hand, "There was a ship," quoth he. "Hold off! unhand me, graybeard loon!" He holds him with his glittering eye- The wedding-guest sat on a stone: An ancient Mariner meeteth three gallants bidden to a wedding foast, and detaineth one. The wedding guest is spell. bound by the eye of the old sea-faring man, and constrained to hear his tale. And thus spake on that ancient man, The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the light-house top. The sun came up upon the left, And he shone bright, and on the right Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, The bride hath paced into the hall, Nodding their heads before her goes The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, And now the storm-blast came, and he He struck with his o'ertaking wings, With sloping masts and dipping prow, The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast, And southward aye we fled. And now there came both mist and snow, And ice, mast-high, came floating by, And through the drifts the snowy clifts Nor shapes of men nor beast we ken- The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, At length did cross an Albatross, As if it had been a Christian soul, It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And a good south wind sprung up behind; 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, "God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!- 1 The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be seen. Till a great reabird called the Albatross, came through the snow fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality. And lo! the AL batross proveth a bird of good omen,and followoth the ship as it returnoth northward through fog and floating ice. The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the plous bird of good omen. |