Each turn’d his face with a ghastly pang
And curs’d me with his ee.
Four times fifty living men,
With never a sigh or groan,
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump
They dropp’d down one by one.
Their souls did from their bodies fly, —
They fled to bliss or woe;
And every soul it pass’d me by,
Like, the whiz of my Cross-bow.
IV.
”I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand;
And thou art long and lank and brown
As is the ribb’d 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 the wide wide Sea;
And Christ would take no pity on
My soul in agony.
The many men so beautiful,
And they all dead did lie!
And a million million slimy things
Liv’d on — and so did I.
I look’d upon the rotting Sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I look’d upon the ghastly deck,
And there the dead men lay.
I look’d to Heaven, and try’d to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came and made
My heart as dry as dust.
I clos’d my lids and kept them close,
Till 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 look’d on me,
Had never pass’d away.
An orphan’s curse would drag to Hell
A spirit from on high:
But O! 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 no where did abide:
Softly she was going up
And a star or two beside —
Her beams bemock’d the sultry main
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.
Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watch’d the water-snakes:
They mov’d in tracks of shining white;
And when they rear’d, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watch’d their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black
They coil’d 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 gusht from my heart,
And I bless’d them unaware!
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I bless’d them unaware.
The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
V.
O sleep, it is a gentle thing
Belov’d from pole to pole!
To Mary-queen the praise be given
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven
That slid into my soul.
The silly buckets on the deck
That had so long remain’d,
I dreamt that they were fill’d with dew
And when I awoke it rain’d.
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 mov’d and could not feel my limbs,
I was so light, almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed 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 danc’d between.
And the coming wind did roar more loud;
And the sails did sigh like sedge:
And the rain pour’d 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 reach’d the Ship,
Yet now the Ship mov’d on!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.
They groan’d; they stirr’d, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor mov’d their eyes:
It had been strange, even in a dream
To have seen those dead men rise,
The helmsman steerd, the ship mov’d on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
The Mariners all gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do:
They rais’d their limbs like lifeless tools —
We were a ghastly crew.
The