Poems of Coleridge. Coleridge Samuel Taylor

        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 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.

        "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 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.

        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."