SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
*
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
In seven parts
Facile credo, plures ease 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? quae loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Jurat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabula, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens aasuefacta hodiernae vitae minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusquo servandua, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distingunmua.
—T. Subnet, Archaed. Phil. p. 68.
Argument
How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.
Part 1
An ancient It is an ancient Mariner,
Mariner meet- And he stoppeth one of three.
cth three Gal- “By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
lants bidden Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
to a wedding-
feast, and de- The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
taineth one. And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.’
.
The Wedding He holds him with his skinny hand,
Guest is spell- “There was a ship,” quoth he.
bound by the “Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!”
eye of the old Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
seafaring man
and con- He holds him with his glittering eye—
strained to The Wedding-Guest stood still,
hear his tale 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 Mariner “The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
tells how the Merrily did we drop
ship sailed Below the kirk, below the hill,
southward Below the lighthouse top.
with a good
wind and fair The Sun came up upon the left,
weather, till it Out of the sea came he!
reached the And he shone bright, and on the right
line. 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 Wedding- The bride hath paced into the hall,
Guest heareth Red as a rose is she;
the bridal Nodding their heads before her goes
music; but The merry minstrelsy.
the Mariner
continueth The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
his tale. Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
The ship “And now the Storm-blast came, and he
driven by a Was tyrannous and strong:
storm toward He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
the south pole. 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.
The land of And through the drifts the snowy clifts
ice, and of Did send a dismal sheen:
fearful sounds Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
where no The ice was all between.
living thing
was to be seen. 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!
Till a great At length did cross an Albatross,
sea-bird Thorough the fog it came;
called the As if it had been a Christian soul,
Albatross, We hailed it in God’s name.
came through
the snow-for, It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
and was And round and round it flew.
received with The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
great joy and The helmsman steered us through!
hospitality.
And lo! the And a good south wind sprung up behind;
Albatross The Albatross did follow,
proveth a bird And every day, for food or play,
of good omen, Came to the mariner’s hollo!
and followeth
the ship as it In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
returned It perched for vespers nine;
northward Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white.
through fog Glimmered the white Moon-shine.” \
and floating ice.
The ancient “God save thee, ancient Mariner!
Mariner From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
inhospitably Why look’st thou so?”—With my cross-bow
killeth the I shot the Albatross.
pions bird of good omen.
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
Game to the mariners’ hollo!
His shipmates And I had done a hellish thing,
cry out against And it would work ‘em woe:
the ancient For all averred, I had killed the bird
Mariner, for That made the breeze to blow.
killing the Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
bird of good luck. That made the breeze to blow!
But when the fog Nor dim nor red, like God’s own head,
fog cleared off The glorious Sun uprist:
they justify the Then all averred, I had killed the bird
name and thus That brought the fog and mist too
make themselves ’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
accomplices in That bring the fog and mist.
the crime.
The fair breeze The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
continues; the The furrow followed free;
ship enters the We were the first that ever burst
Pacific Ocean, and Into that silent sea.
sails northward,
even till it Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
reaches the Line. ’Twas sad as sad could be;
The ship hath And we did speak only to break
been suddenly The silence of the sea!
becalmed.
The ship hath All in a hot and copper sky,
been suddenly The bloody Sun, at noon,
becalmed . Bight 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.
And the Albatross Water, water, every where,
begins to be And all the boards did shrink; no
avenged. Water, water, every where,
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.
A Spirit had And some in dreams assured were
followed them; Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
one of the in- Nine fathom deep he had followed us
visible inhabi- From the land of mist and snow.
Tants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephos, and the Plntonic Constantinopolitnn, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.
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.
The shipmates Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
in their sore Had I from old- and young!
distress, would Instead of the cross, the Albatross
fain throw the About my neck was hung.
whole guilt on the ancient Mariner: in sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird around his neck.
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,
The ancient When looking westward, I beheld
Mariner be- A something in the sky.
holdeth a sign
in the element At first it seemed a little speck,
afar off 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.
At its nearer With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
approach, it We could nor laugh nor wail;
seemeth him Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
to be a ship; I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
and at a dear And cried, A sail! a sail!
ransom he freeth
his speech from With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
the bonds of thirst. Agape they heard me call:
A flash of joy; Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.
And horror follows. See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
For can it be a Hither to work us weal;
a ship that comes Without a breeze, without a tide,
onward without She steadies with upright keel!
wind or tide?
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.
It seemeth him And straight the Sun was necked with bars,
but the skeleton (Heaven’s Mother send us grace!)
of a ship. As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
And its ribs are How fast she nears and nears!
seen as bars on Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
the face of the Like restless gossameres?
setting Sun.
The Spectre-Woman Are those her ribs through which the Sun
and her Death-mate, Did peer, as through a grate?
and no other on And is that Woman all her crew?
board the skeleton Is that a Death? and are there two?
ship. Is Death that woman’s mate?
Like vessel, Her lips were red, her looks were free,
like crew! Her locks were yellow as gold:
Death and Life-in- Her skin was as white as leprosy,
Death have diced for The Night-mare Life-in-death was she,
the ship’s crew, and Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
she (the latter) winneth
the ancient Mariner. The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
“The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won I”
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
No twilight within The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out:
the courts of At one stride comes the dark:
the Sun. With far-heard whisper, o’er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
At the rising We listened and looked sideways up!
of the Moon. 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;
Prom the sails the dew did drip —
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The horned Moon, with one bright star no
Within the nether tip.
One after One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
another, Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.
His shipmates Four times fifty living men,
drop down (And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
dead. 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 They fled to bliss or woe!
on the ancient And every soul, it passed me by,
Mariner. Like the whizz of my cross-bow!
Part IV
The Wedding-Guest “I fear thee, ancient Mariner I
feareth that a I fear thy skinny hand!
Spirit is talking And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
to him; As is the ribbed sea-sand.
I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.’—
But the ancient Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
Mariner assureth This body dropt not down.
him of his bodily
life, and proceedeth Alone, alone, all, all alone,
to relate his Alone on a wide wide sea!
horrible penance. And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
He despiseth the The many men, so beautiful I
creatures of the And they all dead did lie:
calm, And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.
And envieth that I looked upon the rotting sea,
they should live, And drew my eyes away;
and so many lie I looked upon the rotting deck,
dead. And there the dead men lay.
I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
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.
But the curse The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
liveth for him Nor rot nor reek did they:
in the eye of The look with which they looked on me
the dead men. 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.
In his loneliness
and fixedness he The moving Moon went up the sky,
yearneth towards And no where did abide:
the journeying Softly she was going up,
Moon, and the And a star or two beside—
stars that still
sojourn, yet still Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
move onward; and Like April hoar-frost spread;
every where the But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
blue sky belongs to The charmed water burnt alway
them, and is their A still and awful red.
appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.
By the light of Beyond the shadow of the ship,
the Moon he I watched the water-snakes:
beholdeth God’s They moved in tracks of shining white,
creatures of the And when they reared, the elfish light
great calm. 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.
Their beauty and O happy living things! no tongue
their happiness. Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
He blesseth And I blessed them unaware:
them in his Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
heart. And I blessed them unaware.
The spell begins The self-same moment I could pray;
to break. And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
Part V
Oh 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.
By grace of the The silly buckets on the deck,
holy Mother, the That had so long remained,
ancient Mariner is I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
refreshed with rain. And when I awoke, it rained.
My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments nil 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.
He heareth sounds And soon I heard a roaring wind:
and seeth strange It did not come anear;
sights and commotions But with its sound it shook the sails,
in the sky and the That were so thin and sere.
element.
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 bodies of The loud wind never reached the ship,
the ship’s crew Yet now the ship moved on!
are inspired and Beneath the lightning and the Moon
the ship moves on. 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.
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.
But not by the “I fear thee, ancient Mariner!”
men, nor by dæmons Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!
of earth or middle ’Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
air, bat by a blessed Which to their corses came again,
troop of angelic But a troop of spirits blest:
spirits, sent down
by the invocation
of the guardian For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
saint. 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.
The lonesome Spirit Under the keel nine fathom deep,
from the south-pole From the land of mist and snow,
carries on the ship The spirit slid: and it was he
as far as the Line, That made the ship to go.
in obedience to The sails at noon left off their tune,
the angelic troop, And the ship stood still also.
but still requireth
vengeance. 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.
The Polar Spirit’s How long in that same fit I lay,
fellow-dæmons, I have not to declare;
the invisible in- But ere my living life returned,
habitants of the I heard and in my soul discerned
element, take Two voices in the air.
part in his
wrong; and two “Is it he?” quoth one, “Is this the man?
of them relate, By him who died on cross,
one to the other, With his cruel bow he laid full low
that penance long The harmless Albatross.
and heavy for the The spirit who bideth by himself
ancient Mariner In the land of mist and snow,
hath been accord- He loved the bird that loved the man
ed to the Polar Who shot him with his bow.”
Spirit, who re-
turneth southward. 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, toll 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
The Mariner hath “But why drives on that ship so fast,
been cast into a Without or wave or wind?”
trance; for the
angelic power
causeth the second voice
vessel to drive
northward “The air is cut away before,
faster than And closes from behind.
human life Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
could endure. Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner’s trance is abated.
The supernatural I woke, and we were sailing on
motion is retarded; As in a gentle weather:
the Mariner awakes, ’Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
and his penance The dead men stood together.
begins anew.
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.
The curse And now this spell was snapt: once more
is finally I viewed the ocean green,
expiated. 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 hreeze—
On me alone it blew.
And the ancient Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
Mariner be- The light-house top I see?
holdeth his Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
native Is this mine own countree?
country.
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,
The angelic spirits Full many shapes, that shadows were,
leave the dead In crimson colours came.
bodies,
And appear in A little distance from the prow
their own forms Those crimson shadows were:
of light. I turned my eyes upon the deck—
Oh, 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 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
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 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
The Hermit of This Hermit good lives in that wood
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?”
Approacheth “Strange, by my faith!” the Hermit said—
the ship with “And they answered not our cheer!
wonder. The planks looked 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-wolfs young.’
“Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
(The Pilot made reply)
I am a-feared”—“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.
The ship sud- Under the water it rumbled on,
denly sinketh. Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.
The ancient Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Mariner is Which sky and ocean smote,
saved in the Like one that hath been seven days drowned
pilot’s boat. 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.
The ancient “O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!”
Mariner The Hermit crossed his brow.
earnestly en- “Say quick,” quoth he, “I bid thee say—
treateth the What manner of man art thou?”
Hermit to
shrieve him; Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
and the penance With a woful agony,
of life falls on Which forced me to begin my tale;
him. And then it left me free.
And ever and Since then, at an uncertain hour,
anon through That agony returns:
out his future And till my ghastly tale is told,
life an agony This heart within me burns.
canst raineth
him to travel I pass, like night, from land to land;
from land to I have strange power of speech;
land; 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 bride-maids singing are:
And hark the little vesper 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 seemèd there to be. Coo
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!
And to teach, Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
by his own To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
example, love He prayeth well, who loveth well
and reverence Both man and bird and beast.
to all things
that God made He prayeth best, who loveth best
and loveth. 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 a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
*
Frost at Midnight
The Frost performs its secret ministry,
Unhelped by any wind. The owlet’s cry
Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.
The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,
Have left me to that solitude, which suits
Abstruser musings: save that at my side
My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.
’Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs
And vexes meditation with its strange
And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,
This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,
With all the numberless goings-on of life,
Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame
Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;
Only that film,’ which fluttered on the grate,
Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.
Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature
Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,
Making it a companionable form,
Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit
By its own moods interprets, every where
Echo or mirror seeking of itself,
And makes a toy of Thought.
But O! how oft,
How oft, at school, with most believing mind,
Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,
To watch that fluttering stranger! and as oft
With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt
Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,
Whose bells, the poor man’s only music, rang
From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,
So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me
With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear
Most like articulate sounds of things to come!
So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,
Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!
And so I brooded all the following morn,
Awed by the stern preceptor’s face, mine eye
Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:
Save if the door half opened, and I snatched
A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,
For still I hoped to see the strangers face,
Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,
My play-mate when we both were clothed alike I
Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,
Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,
Fill up the interspersed vacancies
And momentary pauses of the thought!
My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart
With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,
And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,
And in far other scenes! For I was reared
In the great city, pent ‘mid cloisters dim,
And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.
But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear
The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible
Of that eternal language, which thy God
Utters, who from eternity doth teach
Himself in all, and all things in himself.
Great universal Teacher! he shall mould
Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch
Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall
Heard only in the trances of the blast,
Or if the secret ministry of frost
Shall hang them up in silent icicles,
Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.
*
Kubla Khan
Or, A Vision in a Dream. A Fragment
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
1 And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher’s flail:
And “mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man.
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And ‘mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!
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, 40
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a 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.
*
Dejection: An Ode
Late, late yestreen I saw the new Moon,
With the old Moon in her arms;
And I fear, I fear, my Master dear!
We shall have a deadly storm.
Ballad of Sir Patrick Spence.
I
Well! If the Bard was weather-wise, who made
The grand old ballad of Sir Patrick Spence,
This night, so tranquil now, will not go hence
Unroused by winds, that ply a busier trade
Than those which mould yon cloud in lazy (hikes,
Or the dull sobbing draft, that moans and rakes
Upon the strings of this Æolian lute,
Which better far were mute.
For lo! the New-moon winter-bright!
And overspread with phantom light,
(With swimming phantom light o’erspread
But rimmed and circled by a silver thread)
I see the old Moon in her lap, foretelling
The coming-on of rain and squally blast.
And oh! that even now the gust were swelling,
And the slant night-shower driving loud and fast!
Those sounds which oft have raised me, whilst they awed,
And sent my soul abroad,
Might now perhaps their wonted impulse give,
Might startle this dull pain, and make it move and live!
II
A grief without a pang, void, dark, and drear,
A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,
Which finds no natural outlet, no relief,
In word, or sigh, or tear—
O Lady! in this wan and heartless mood,
To other thoughts by yonder throstle woo’d,
All this long eve, so balmy and serene,
Have I been gazing on the western sky,
And its peculiar tint of yellow green:
And still I gaze—and with how blank an eye!
And those thin clouds above, in flakes and bars,
That give away their motion to the stars;
Those stars, that glide behind them or between,
Now sparkling, now bedimmed, but always seen:
Yon crescent Moon, as fixed as if it grew
In its own cloudless, starless lake of blue;
I see them all so excellently fair,
I see, not feel, how beautiful they are!
III
My genial spirits fail;
And what can these avail
To lift the smothering weight from off my breast?
It were a vain endeavour,
Though I should gaze for ever
On that green light that lingers in the west:
I may not hope from outward forms to win
The passion and the life, whose fountains are within.
IV
O Lady! we receive but what we give,
And in our life alone does Nature live:
Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud!
And would we aught behold, of higher worth,
Than that inanimate cold world allowed
To the poor loveless ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud
Enveloping the Earth—
And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth,
Of all sweet sounds the life and element!
V
O pure of heart! thou need’st not ask of me
What this strong music in the soul may be!
What, and wherein it doth exist,
This light, this glory, this fair luminous mist,
This beautiful and beauty-making power.
Joy, virtuous Lady! Joy that ne’er was given,
Save to the pure, and in their purest hour,
Life, and Life’s effluence, cloud at once and shower,
Joy, Lady! is the spirit and the power,
Which wedding Nature to us gives in dower
A new Earth and new Heaven,
Undreamt of by the sensual and the proud —
Joy is the sweet voice, Joy the luminous cloud —
We in ourselves rejoice!
And thence flows all that charms or ear or sight,
All melodies the echoes of that voice,
All colours a suffusion from that light.
VI
There was a time when, though my path was rough,
This joy within me dallied with distress,
And all misfortunes were but as the stuff
Whence Fancy made me dreams of happiness:
For hope grew round me, like the twining vine, So
And fruits, and foliage, not my own, seemed mine.
But now afflictions bow me down to earth:
Nor care I that they rob me of my mirth;
But oh! each visitation
Suspends what nature gave me at my birth,
My shaping spirit of Imagination.
For not to think of what I needs must feel,
But to be still and patient, all I can;
And haply by abstruse research to steal
From my own nature all the natural man—
This was my sole resource, my only plan:
Till that which suits a part infects the whole,
And now is almost grown the habit of my soul.
VII
Hence, viper thoughts, that coil around my mind,
Reality’s dark dream!
I turn from you, and listen to the wind,
Which long has raved unnoticed. What a scream
Of agony by torture lengthened out
That lute sent forth! Thou Wind, that rav’st without,
Bare crag, or niountain-tairn, or blasted tree,
Or pine-grove whither woodman never clomb,
Or lonely house, long held the witches’ home,
Methinks were fitter instruments for thee,
Mad Lutanist! who in this month of showers,
Of dark-brown gardens, and of peeping flowers,
Mak’st Devils’ yule, with worse than wintry song,
The blossoms, buds, and timorous leaves among.
Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!
Thou mighty Poet, e’en to frenzy bold!
What tell’st thou now about? No
’Tis of the rushing of an host in rout,
With groans, of trampled men, with smarting wounds—
At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!
But hush! there is a pause of deepest silence!
And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,
With groans, and tremulous shudderings—all is over—
It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!
A tale of less affright,
And tempered with delight,
As Otway’s self had framed the tender lay,—
’Tis of a little child
Upon a lonesome wild,
Not far from home, but she hath lost her way:
And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,
And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.
VIII
’Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep:
Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!
Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,
And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,
May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,
Silent as though they watched the sleeping Earth!
With light heart may she rise,
Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,
Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;
To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul!
O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mayest thou ever, evermore rejoice.