My head was turn'd perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

[Then vanish'd all the lovely lights; The bodies rose anew :

With silent расе, each to his place,

Came back the ghastly crew.

The wind that shade nor motion made
On me alone it blew.]*

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.

* This stanza only appears in the edition of 1798. In a copy of that edition the stanza is marked through, and the following lines are substituted in the margin in the handwriting of the author :

"Then vanish'd all the lovely lights,

The spirits of the air,

No souls of mortal men were they,

But spirits bright and fair."

PART VII.

THIS Hermit good lives in that 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 near'd: I heard them talk,

66

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 answer'd not our cheer!

The planks look warp'd! 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;

*The skeletons.-1798-1817.

The Hermit of the wood

Approacheth the ship with wonder.

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 a-fear'd"-" Push on, push on!"
Said the Hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirr'd ;

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 reach'd the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days drown'd
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 shriek'd
And fell down in a fit;

The holy Hermit raised his eyes,

And pray'd where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,

Laugh'd 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 stepp'd forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" The Hermit cross'd his brow.

"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee sayWhat manner of man art thou ?"

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd
With a woful 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.*

*Since then at an uncertain hour

Now ofttimes and now fewer,
That anguish comes and makes me tell
My ghastly aventure.-1798.

The ancient
Mariner
earnestly
entreateth
the Hermit
to shrieve
him; and the
penance of
life falls on
him.

And ever and

anon

throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to

land;

And to teach, by his own example,

love and re

I

pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech;

The 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 seemed 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 !