The upper air burst into life! In his loneliness The moving Moon went up the sky, And a hundred fire-flags sheen, and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still so And nowhere did abide : Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside By the light of the Moon he beboldeth God's creatures of the great calm. Their beauty and their happiness. He blesseth them in his heart. 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 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 : To and fro they were hurried about! And the coming wind did roar more And the sails did sigh like sedge; The thick black cloud was cleft, and The Moon was at its side: Like waters shot from some high crag, strange sights in the sky and the element. The loud wind never reach'd the The bodies of the ship, 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 The body of my brother's son The body and I pull'd at one rope, To Mary Queen the praise be given!" I fear thee, ancient Mariner!" ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on. But not by the souls of the men, nor by dæmons of earth or middle 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. Sometimes, a-drooping from the sky, With their sweet jargoning! And now 't was like all instruments, And now it is an angel's song, 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. Till noon we quietly sailed on, Under the keel nine fathom deep, The sails at noon left off their tune, The Sun, right up above the mast, With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go, her other, that pen- "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the ance long and man? heavy for the an- By him who died on cross, cient Mariner hath been accord ed to the Polar Spirit, who returneth south ward. I view'd the ocean green, With his cruel bow he laid full low Of what had else been seen- But soon there breathed a wind on me, Quoth he, "The man hath penance Nor sound nor motion made: 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 How loudly his sweet voice he rears! He kneels at morn, and noon, and He hath a cushion plump: The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk, Why this is strange, I trow! 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 bodies, And appear in their own forms of light. "And they answer not our cheer! How thin they are and sere! Full many shapes that shadows were, Unless perchance it were A little distance from the prow Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat; A man all light, a seraph-man, "Brown skeletons of leaves that lag When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, That eats the she-wolf's young." "Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look- I am a-fear'd ""Push on, push on!" This seraph band, each waved his Said the Hermit cheerily. hand: It was a heavenly sight! They stood as signals to the land This seraph band, each waved his The boat came closer to the ship, The boat came close beneath the ship, 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 suddenly sinketh. Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful The ancient Ma sound, Which sky and ocean smote, 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 The ancient MaEiner earnestly enreateth the Her bit to shrive 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, 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 Scarce seemed there to be. 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 know the man that must hear me : All things both great and small; The Mariner, whose eye is bright, He went like one that hath been What loud uproar bursts from that 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 animation. But as, in my very first conception of the 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. are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably 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 suspected 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 the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggrel version of two monkish Latin hexameters. "T is 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. CHRISTABEL. PART I. "Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And the owls have awaken'd the crowing cock; Tu-whit!-Tu-whoo! And hark, again! the crowing cock, Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff, which From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Is the night chilly and dark? The lovely lady, Christabel, What makes her in the wood so late, She stole along, she nothing spoke, She kneels beneath the huge oak-tree, The lady sprang up suddenly, The night is chill; the forest bare; Hush, beating heart of Christabel! She folded her arms beneath her cloak, What sees she there? There she sees a damsel bright, That shadowy in the moonlight shone : Mary mother, save me now! I scarce can speak for weariness: My sire is of a noble line, Five warriors seized me yestermorn, They choked my cries with force and fright, They spurr'd amain, their steeds were white; |