n his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still so The upper air burst into life! The moving Moon went up the sky, And a hundred fire-flags sheen, And nowhere did abide. Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside journ, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unan nounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival. Their beauty and their happiness. He blesseth them in his beart. Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, The charmed water burnt alway Beyond the shadow of the ship And when they rear'd, the elfish light Within the shadow of the ship Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, Was a flash of golden fire. O happy living things! no tongue A spring of love gush'd from my And I bless'd them unaware: in the sky and the element. The loud wind never reach'd the The bodies of the Yet now the ship moved on! They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; The helmsman steer'd, the ship Yet never a breeze up blew; Sure my kind saint took pity on me, Where they were wont to do; The spell begins The self-same moment I could pray; to break. And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank PART V. Oн Sleep! it is a gentle thing, They raised their limbs like lifeless -We were a ghastly crew. The body of my brother's son To Mary Queen the praise be given!" I fear thee, ancient Mariner!" I dreamt that they were fill'd with 'Twas not those souls that fled pain, Which to their corses came again, in ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on. But not by the souls of the men, earth or middle nor by dæmons of air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the For when it dawn'd-they dropp'd guardian saint. their arms, My lips were wet, my throat was cold, And cluster'd round the mast; My garments all were dank; Sure I had drunken in my dreams, And still my body drank. Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies pass'd. I moved, and could not feel my Around, around, flew each sweet limbs : I was so light-almost I thought that I had died in sleep, sound, Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, The loneson/e spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as far as the line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance. The Polar Spirit's cient Mariner Sometimes, a-drooping from the sky, With their sweet jargoning! And now 't was like all instruments, PART VI. FIRST VOICE. BUT tell me, tell me! speak again, What is the OCEAN doing? SECOND VOICE. Still as a slave before his lord, It ceased; yet still the sails made on Up to the Moon is cast A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, If he may know which way to go; That to the sleeping woods all night See, brother, see! how graciously Singeth a quiet tune. "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man? By him who died on cross, And now this spell was snapt: once The curse is fi nally expiated. more I view'd the ocean green, With his cruel bow he laid full low Of what had else been seen- "The spirit who bideth by himself man Who shot him with his bow." The other was a softer voice, Quoth he, "The man hath penance And penance more will do." Like one, that on a lonesome road on, And turns no more his head; But soon there breathed a wind on me, We drifted o'er the harbor bar, The harbor-bay was clear as glass, And on the bay the moonlight lay, He singeth loud his godly hymns away The Albatross's blood. PART VII. THIS Hermit good lives in that wood The Hermit of He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve He hath a cushion plump: The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk, Why this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights so many and fair, The rock shone bright, the kirk no That signal made but now?" less That stands above the rock: The moonlight steep'd in silentness And the bay was white with silent The angelic spir- Till, rising from the same, its leave the dead bodice, And appear in their own forms of light. 46 Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit Approacheth the "And they answer not our cheer! How thin they are and sere! Full many shapes that shadows were, Unless perchance it were Under the water it rumbled on, No voice did they impart- But soon I heard the dash of oars, I heard the Pilot's cheer; The ship went down like lead. ship with wonder The ship suddenly sinketh Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful The ancient Ma sound, My head was turn'd perforce away, Like one that hath been seven days And I saw a boat appear. The Pilot and the Pilot's boy, I saw a third-I heard his voice : drown'd My body lay afloat; But swift as dreams, myself I found Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, riner is saved in the Pilot's boat. I moved my lips-the Pilot shriek'd, The holy Hermit raised his eyes, I took the oars: the Pilot's boy, But in the garden-bower the bride O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been Laugh'd loud and long, and all the So lonely 'twas, that God himself while His eyes went to and fro. Scarce seemed there to be. “Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see, O sweeter than the marriage-feast, The Devil knows how to row." of life falls on him. And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land, say -What manner of man art thou?" "Tis sweeter far to me, To walk together to the kirk, While each to his great Father bends, And youths and maidens gay! Farewell, farewell! but this I tell Forthwith this frame of mine was He prayeth well, who loveth well wrench'd With a woful agony, Both man and bird and beast. Which forced me to begin my tale; He prayeth best, who loveth best And then it left me free. Since then, at an uncertain hour, And till my ghastly tale is told, I pass, like night, from land to land; I have strange power of speech; I know the man that must hear me : What loud uproar bursts from that The wedding-guests are there: All things both great and small; The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest Turn'd from the bridegroom's door. He went like one that hath been And is of sense forlorn, And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth. Christabel. PREFACE.* at either of the former periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But THE first part of the following poem was written in for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose seven, at Stowey in the county of Somerset. The of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imisecond part, after my return from Germany, in the tation from myself. For there is amongst us a set of year one thousand eight hundred, at Keswick, Cum- critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought berland. Since the latter date, my poetic powers and image is traditional; who have no notion that there have been, till very lately, in a state of suspended are such things as fountains in the world, small as animation. But as, in my very first conception of the well as great; and who would therefore charitably tale, I had the whole present to my mind, with the wholeness, no less than with the loveliness of a vision, I trust that I shall yet be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to come. It is probable, that if the poem had been finished To the edition of 1816. derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be sus pected of having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole would be among the first to vindicate me from th charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggrel version of two monkish Latin hexameters. "Tis mine and it is likewise yours; Let it be mine, good friend! for I I have only to add that the metre of the Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition, in the nature of the imagery or passion. My sire is of a noble line, And my name is Geraldine : Five warriors seized me yestermorn, Me, even me, a maid forlorn: They choked my cries with force and fright, They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white; |