Illustration

Dirge from The Tempest

Full fadom five thy Father lies,

Of his bones are Corrall made:

Those are pearl’s that were his eyes,

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a Sea-change

Into something rich and strange:

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell.

Hark now I hear them, ding-dong bell.

William Shakespeare
(1564–1616)

O Captain! My Captain!

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

But O heart! heart! heart!

O the bleeding drops of red,

Where on the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;

Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;

For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths—for you the shores

a-crowding;

For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;

Here Captain! dear father!

This arm beneath your head;

It is some dream that on the deck,

You’ve fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;

My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;

From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

Exult O shores, and ring O bells!

But I, with mournful tread,

Walk the deck my Captain lies,

Fallen cold and dead.

Walt Whitman
(1819–1892)

Under the Surface

On the surface, foam and roar,

Restless heave and passionate dash,

Shingle rattle along the shore,

Gathering boom and thundering crash.

Under the surface, soft green light,

A hush of peace and an endless calm,

Winds and waves from a choral height,

Falling sweet as a far-off psalm.

On the surface, swell and swirl,

Tossing weed and drifting waif,

Broken spars that the mad waves whirl,

Where wreck-watching rocks they chafe.

Under the surface, loveliest forms.

Feathery fronds with crimson curl,

Treasures too deep for the raid of storms,

Delicate coral and hidden pearl.

Illustration

 

On the surface, lilies white,

A painted skiff with a singing crew,

Sky-reflections soft and bright,

Tremulous crimson, gold and blue.

Under the surface, life in death,

Slimy tangle and oozy moans,

Creeping things with watery breath,

Blackening roots and whitening bones.

On the surface, a shining reach,

A crystal couch for the moonbeams’ rest,

Starry ripples along the beach,

Sunset songs from the breezy west.

Under the surface, glooms and fears,

Treacherous currents swift and strong,

Deafening rush in the drowning ears,—

Have ye rightly read my song?

Frances Ridley Havergal
(1836–1879)

The City in the Sea

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne

In a strange city lying alone

Far down within the dim West,

Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best

Have gone to their eternal rest.

There shrines and palaces and towers

(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)

Resemble nothing that is ours.

Around, by lifting winds forgot,

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters he.

No rays from the holy heaven come down

On the long night-time of that town;

But light from out the lurid sea

Streams up the turrets silently—

Gleams up the pinnacles far and free

Up domes—up spires—up kingly halls

Up fanes—up Babylon-like walls

Up shadowy long-forgotten bowers

Of sculptured ivy and stone flowers—

Up many and many a marvellous shrine

Whose wreathed friezes intertwine

The viol, the violet, and the vine.

Resignedly beneath the sky

The melancholy waters lie.

So blend the turrets and shadows there

That all seem pendulous in air,

While from a proud tower in the town

Death looks gigantically down.

There open fanes and gaping graves

Yawn level with the luminous waves;

But not the riches there that lie

In each idol’s diamond eye—

Not the gaily-jewelled dead

Tempt the waters from their bed;

For no ripples curl, alas!

Along that wilderness of glass—

No swellings tell that winds may be

Upon some far-off happier sea—

No heavings hint that winds have been

On seas less hideously serene.

But lo, a stir is in the air!

The wave— there is a movement there!

As if the towers had thrust aside,

In slightly sinking, the dull tide—

As if their tops had feebly given

A void within the filmy Heaven.

The waves have now a redder glow—

The hours are breathing faint and low

And when, amid no earthly moans,

Down, down that town shall settle hence,

Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,

Shall do it reverence.

Edgar Allen Poe
(1809–1849)

The Titanic

Forth flashed the serpent streak of steel,

Consummate crown of man’s device;

Down crashed upon an immobile

And brainless barrier of ice.

Courage!

The grey gods shoot a laughing lip:–

Let not faith founder with the ship!

We reel before the blows of fate;

Our stout souls stagger at the shock.

Oh! there is Something ultimate

Fixed faster than the living rock.

Courage!

Catastrophe beyond belief

Harden our hearts to fear and grief!

The gods upon the Titans shower

Their high intolerable scorn;

But no god knoweth in what hour

A new Prometheus may be born.

Courage!

Man to his doom goes driving down;

A crown of thorns is still a crown!

No power of nature shall withstand

At last the spirit of mankind:

It is not built upon the sand;

It is not wastrel to the wind.

Courage!

Disaster and destruction tend

To taller triumph in the end.

Aleister Crowley
(1875–1947)

The Sea-Ritual

Prayer unread, and Mass unsung,

Deadman’s dirge must still be rung;

Dingle-dong, the deadbells sound,

Mermen chant his dirge around!

Wash him bloodless, smoothe him fair,

Stretch his limbs, and sleek his hair:

Dingle-dong, the deadbells go!

Mermen swing them to and fro!

In the wormless sand shall he

Feast for no foul gluttons be:

Dingle-dong, the deadbells chime!

Mermen keep the tune and time!

We must with a tombstone brave

Shut the shark from out of his grave:

Dingle-dong, the deadbells toll!

Mermen ring his requiem-knoll!

Such a slab will we lay o’er him

All the dead shall rise before him!

Dingle-dong, the deadbells boom!

Mermen lay him in his tomb!

George Darley
(1795–1846)

The Sea-Queen

The day dies down into deepening gloom, and the wind for once is still,

And the shadows rise in a dim dark pool to the height of the window sill;

The old house creaks as the silence spreads unruffled and vast and drear,

Till the slightest sound is an echoing knell as it falls on the startled ear.

The sand lies glimmering, strange and grey, at the foot of the craggy steep,

While the ominous, inky, sullen sea has lulled its waves to sleep,

And the snags stand gaunt on the desolate shore ’mid the sea-weed dry and stiff,

Where bleaching bones of shipwrecked men show faint at the foot of the cliff.

Alone in the creaking house I sit, and know that the end must be

Some day, by a way that I cannot escape, in this house by the wintry sea;

Where memory broods o’er the days of old as the shapes creep forth and stare,

And the wan white face of my Love looks out from the shadowy mist of her hair.

The wan white face of my Love in pain, who stretches her arms to speak,

And I strive to hear, and listen in vain, as the oaken timbers creak,

Or I catch her footfall soft and light, and turn, but she is not there—

My Love, who sleeps on the couch of Death in the land of my hope’s despair.

Oh, why is my heart so sick with dread, and what has my soul to fear,

When the ultimate realm of Death itself keeps all that I hold most dear?

My beautiful Love, with her beautiful hands and her lips with their flagrant

breath,

Shall press my face to her own once more, yes, there in the land of Death.

Yet still through the creak of the dismal house I hear a pitiful sigh,

And a warning tells me my hope is vain, yet how can I else than die?

A raven sweeps by the window pane from his haunt on the storm-rent hill,

And a log from the fire slips down with a crash; then even the house is still.

And ever the months and the years have gone and ever that low sad sigh

In the weary house by the perilous shore, where my only hope is to die;

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And ever the months and the years have gone and ever that low sad sigh

In the weary house by the perilous shore, where my only hope is to die;

And menacing half-seen forms appear remorseless, cruel, and grim,

Whose long lean arms, reaching out as I pass, still lurk in the shadows dim.

And they draw me near to the window pane, where I cannot avoid the sight,

As the moon with her deadly sapphire sheen sheds ever her loveless light;

And I shut my eyes, but my ears must hear whatever the curse may bring,

And, if my resisting eyes unclose, I shall see the fearful thing.

For the doom has come, it is all around, oppressive and near and still,

And I struggle to free myself, close pressed by those arms ’gainst the window sill.

Then sudden I hear the harrowing cry of my Love in her fear for me,

And my limbs grow numb and the cold sweat falls as the terror comes over

the sea

While a sound, enticing, alluring, wild, wells up from the hideous night,

Of a music that thrills through my quivering nerves with the pain of a fierce

delight,

And, could I but keep my eyelids closed, who knows but the hour might turn?

Yet my courage fails as the spirit quails, and I open them wide and learn.

And here, below, at the water’s marge, there sits in the dreary light

A maiden, shaped for a god to limn, with ivory form and white;

Her locks more dense than the inky deep and her splendid limbs all bare,

While the gleaming glint of her shoulder shows through the wealth of her

wonderful hair.

And oh, her magical twin white breasts and her delicate, slender throat,

And the mystical curve of the rare red lips whence the ravishing melodies float;

So finely modelled and clearly cut is the scheme of her body’s grace—

Oh, how can my spirit dare to endure the enchanting lure of her face?

Yet your eyes are cruel and grey, Sea-Queen, and your lips are too luscious

and sweet,

As a poisoned flower in the glade that shows its beauty of dark deceit;

And the rippling strength of your agile form is hard, unyielding, and chill:

You could never nestle by me, Sea-Queen, softly and warm and still.

But I feel the spell of your passionate song and am thralled by your witching

gaze,

And the murky mass of your marvellous hair has twined my heart in its maze,

And your lovely limbs with the pleading arms and your exquisite hands and feet

Are drawing the uttermost deeps of my soul:—You are cruel, in sooth,—but sweet.

And sweet is the thought of your strange embrace; yet what are the bones

on the shore,

Whose immortal souls have you made your own and whose bodies are seen

no more?

Oh, why must you take my soul, Sea-Queen; and your kisses, oh, why must

they be

Dear bought, at so vast a price of doom, on the strand of this wintry sea?

But now you have made me your own, Sea-Queen, and bewildered and thralled

I go

Where ruby-tipped are the breasts of pearl on that bosom of coldest snow.

Yet oh! as I pass from the haunted house and the threshold of fate is crossed,

I hear the agonised voice of Love that fought for my soul and lost.

And you draw me down with your direful spell in the whirling, narrowing years,

Whose clamouring eddies cannot drown that wild lament in my ears;

And, or ever I touch those frozen lips, I learn at the last, too late,

When clasped in the ice of a dead desire, how this is not love—but hate.

Ian B. Stoughton Holbourn
(1872–1935)

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Part I

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

“By thy long gray beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,

And I am next of kin;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

Mayst hear the merry din.”

He holds him with his skinny hand;

“There was a ship,” quoth he.

“Hold off! unhand me, graybeard loon!”

Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

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 dipping 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 clifts

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;

While all the night, through fog-smoke white,

Glimmered the white Moon-shine.”

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“God save thee, ancient Mariner,

From the fiends that plague thee thus!

Why look’st thou so?”—With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross.

Part II

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 mariners’ hollo!

And I had done a hellish thing,

And it would work ’em woe;

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

“Ah, wretch!” said they, “the bird to slay

That mad 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 aflame,

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 hornèd 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 dropt down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly—

They fled to bliss or woe!

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 dropt 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 the heavens, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gushed,

A wicked whisper came and made

My heart as dry as dust.

Illustration

 

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 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 nowhere 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 charmèd water burned 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 blest them unaware:

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I blest them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;

And from my neck so free

The Aalbatross 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 by 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 blesséd 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 me 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 upblew;

The mariners all ’gan work the ropes

Where they were wont to do;

They raised their limbs like lifeless fools—

We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother’s son

Stood by me knee to knee:

The body and I pulled at one rope,

But he said naught 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 skylark 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 sailèd 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!”

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 steeped 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 turned my eyes upon the deck—

O Christ! what saw I there!

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,

It was a heavenly sight!

They stood as signals to the land,

Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band each waved his hand,

No voice did they impart—

No voice; but oh! the silence sunk

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,

And I saw a boat appear.

The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy,

I heard them coming fast;

Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy

The dead mean 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 the wood

Which slopes down to the sea.

How loudly his sweet voice he rears!

He loves to talk with marineres

That come from a far countree.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—

He hath a cushion plump;

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 look warped; and see those sails,

How thin they are and sere!

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,

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,

That eats the she-wolf’s young.”

“Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look,”

The Pilot made reply—

“I am afeared.”—“Push on, push on!”

Said the Hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship,

But I nor spake nor stirred;

The boat came close beneath the ship,

And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread:

It reached the ship, it split the bay;

The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,

Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found

Within the Pilot’s boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,

The boat spun round and round;

And all was still, save that the hill

Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked,

And fell down in a fit;

The holy Hermit raised his eyes,

And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,

Who now doth crazy go,

Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro:

“Ha! ha!” quoth he, “full plain I see

The Devil knows how to row!”

And now, all in my own countree,

I stood on the firm land!

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,

And scarcely he could stand.

“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

With a woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,

This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land:

I have strange powers of speech;

That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:

To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!

The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden bower the bride

And bridesmaids singing are:

And hark the little versper-bell,

Which biddeth me to prayer!

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide, wide sea;

So lonely ’twas, that God Himself

Scarce seeméd there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

’Tis sweeter far to me,

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company!—

To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,

Old men and babes, and loving friends,

And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell

To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!

He prayeth well, who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.”

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,

Whose beard with age is hoar,

Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest

Turned from the bridegroom’s door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge
(1772–1834)

The Sands of Dee

“O Mary, go and call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

And call the cattle home,

Across the sands of Dee.”

The western wind was wild and dark with foam,

And all alone went she.

The western tide crept up along the sand,

And o’er and o’er the sand,

And round and round the sand,

As far as the eye could see.

The rolling mist came down and hid the land:

And never home came she.

“O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair—

A tress of golden hair

A drownèd maiden’s hair,

Above the nets at sea?

Was never salmon yet shone so fair

Among the stakes of Dee.”

They row’d her in across the rolling foam,

The cruel crawling foam,

The cruel hungry foam,

To her grave beside the sea.

But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,

Across the sands of Dee.

Charles Kingsley
(1819–1875)

The Fog Siren

The grey mist veils the deep, the seeming ghost,

Forlorn and olden, of the world’s lost seas.

Veering to fancies of the muffled breeze,

There moans with ocean down the shrouded coast

(Ceaseless, as from the eternal pain and post,

And born of woe no mortal may appease)

The siren’s grieving, that, as daylight flees,

Summons the drowned, a solemn shadow-host.

Then, as the pallid spectres landward creep,

Apocalyptic voices haunt the gloom;

We hear, upon the troubling of the deep,

The bellow of the Beast drawn down to doom;

And rending all Death’s empire in its sweep,

The trumpet’s groaning rolls athwart the tomb.

George Sterling
(1869–1926)

The Mariner

Soft came the breath of spring; smooth flow’d the tide;

And blue the heaven in its mirror smil’d;

The white sail trembled, swell’d, expanded wide,

The busy sailors at the anchor toil’d.

With anxious friends, that shed the parting tear,

The deck was throng’d—how swift the moments fly!

The vessel heaves, the farewell signs appear;

Mute is each tongue, and eloquent each eye!

The last dread moment comes!—The sailor-youth

Hides the big drop, then smiles amid his pain,

Soothes his sad bride, and vows eternal truth,

‘Farewell, my love—we shall—shall meet again!’

Long on the stern, with waving hand, he stood;

The crowded shore sinks, lessening from his view,

As gradual glides the bark along the flood;

His bride is seen no more—“Adieu!—adieu!”

The breeze of Eve moans low, her smile is o’er,

Dim steals her twilight down the crimson’d west,

He climbs the top-most mast, to seek once more

The far-seen coast, where all his wishes rest.

He views its dark line on the distant sky,

And Fancy leads him to his little home,

He sees his weeping love, he hears her sigh,

He soothes her griefs, and tells of joys to come.

Eve yields to night, the breeze to wintry gales,

In one vast shade the seas and the shore repose;

He turns his aching eyes,—his spirit fails,

The chill tear falls;—sad to the deck he goes!

The storm of midnight swells, the sails are furl’d,

Deep sounds the lead, but finds no friendly shore,

Fast o’er the waves the wretched bark is hurl’d,

“O Ellen, Ellen!’ we must meet no more!”

Illustration

 

Lightnings, the shew the vast and foamy deep,

The rending thunders, as they onward roll

The loud, loud winds, that o’er the bilows sweep—

Shake the firm nerve, appall the bravest soul!

Ah! what avails the seaman’s toiling care!

The straining cordage bursts, the mast is riv’n;

The sounds of terror groan along the air,

Then sink afar;—the bark on rocks is driv’n!

Fierce o’er the wreck the whelming waters pass’d,

The helpless crew sunk in the roaring main!

Henry’s faint accents trembled in the blast—

“Farewell, my love!—we ne’er shall meet again!”

Oft, at the calm and silent evening hour,

When summer breezes linger on the wave,

A melancholy voice is heard to pour

Its lonely sweetness o’er poor Henry’s grave!

And oft, at midnight, airy strains are heard

Around the grove, where Ellen’s form is laid;

Nor is the dirge by village-maidens fear’d,

For lovers’ spirits guard the holy shade!

Ann Radcliffe
(1764–1823)

Silberhorn

In Dennis O’Halloran’s bar-room, down by Newcastle pier,

(Was ever ye down to Newcastle, lad?), I was sittin’ drinkin’ a beer,

An’ treatin’ a girl called Topsy (ye know the kind she’d be),

When somebody called from the doorway, “The Silberhorn’s going to sea!”

An’ I rose from my feet to see her, an’ Topsy I pushed aside,

For ye’ll see no ship like the Silberhorn go out wi’ every tide;

An’ I stood at the street-side starin’ to see the grand packet go by,

Wi’ the sunset bright on her beauty, an’ her ensign flutterin’ high.

I saw John Warren, her skipper, wi’ his eyes o’ windy grey,

An’ her first mate, Willie Dougal, an’ her second mate, Tom O’Shay,

An’ eight young bonny apprentice boys wavin’ the girls farewell,

An’ deep from the break of her fo’c’sle came the clang of her big iron bell.

As her bells broke out while she passed me a something gripped my breath,

As slow from her pier she glided, wi’ the evenin’ still as death;

The sun went under a cloud-bank, an’ the dusk came droppin’ down,

An’ the only sound was the laughter o’ the girls o’ Newcastle town.

They lowered the grand ship’s ensign, an’ she slipped away to the night,

Till all I could see in the darkness was the gleam of her binnacle light;

As the girls turned back to the bar-room clear over the steam there came

The long, high echoing sing-song of her chanteyman’s refrain.

“Good-bye, fare you well,” I heard it, an’ a cheer an’ an order loud,

As a lone star winked in the darkness from the rim of a driftin’ cloud;

An’ I called to Dennis O’Halloran to bring me a bottle o’ beer,

An’ I drank in the bar-room doorway to the ship gone out from her pier.

O’Halloran’s rang wi’ laughter, but chilly there came o’er me

A feel like the feel o’ the midnight when there’s drift ice on the sea;

An’ the fiddler started fiddlin’; an’ Topsy tossed her head:

“You buys me no drink, nor dances? You acts like a man what’s dead!”

So I called for a bottle for Topsy, an’ forgot the sailor’s way,

An’ never gave thought to the Silberhorn for many an’ many a day;

But when next I heard her mentioned I remembered the Newcastle pier

An’ the night when I’d drunk to her hearties in a bottle o’ Newcastle beer.

“Lost with all hands,” I read it; “Lost with all hands.” No more;

Never a word o’ the latitude, how far or how near the shore;

“Good-bye, fare you well,” came ringin’, an’ a cheer, an’ an order high,

From the grand fine packet that evenin’ goin’ out to the sea to die!

Bill Adams
(1879–1953)

Van Diemen’s Land

Anon.

Beach Burial

Softly and humbly to the Gulf of Arabs

The convoys of dead sailors come;

At night they sway and wander in the waters far under

But morning rolls them in the foam.

Between the sob and clubbing of the gunfire

Someone, it seems, has time for this,

To pluck them from the shallows and bury them in burrows

And tread the sand upon their nakedness;

And each cross, the driven stake of tidewood,

Bears the last signature of men,

Written with such perplexity, with such bewildered pity,

The words choke as they begin—

Unknown seaman’—the ghostly pencil

Wavers and fades, the purple drips,

The breath of wet season has washed their inscriptions

As blue as drowned men’s lips,

Dead seamen, gone in search of the same landfall,

Whether as enemies they fought,

Or fought with us, or neither; the sand joins them together,

Enlisted on the other front.

Kenneth Slessor
(1901–1971)

Stars in the Sea

Roderic Quinn
(1867–1949)

Australia

Last sea-thing dredged by sailor Time from Space,

Are you a drift Sargasso, where the West

In halcyon calm rebuilds her fatal nest?

Or Delos of a coming Sun-God’s race?

Are you for Light, and trimmed, with oil in place,

Or but a Will o’ Wisp on marshy quest?

A new demesne for Mammon to infest?

Or lurks millennial Eden ’neath your face?

The cenotaphs of species dead elsewhere

That in your limits leap and swim and fly,

Or trail uncanny harp-strings from your trees,

Mix omens with the auguries that dare

To plant the Cross upon your forehead sky,

A virgin helpmate Ocean at your knees.

Bernard O’Dowd
(1866–1952)

Ultima Thule

Cicely Fox Smith
(1882–1954)