THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

PART THE SECOND.

THE Sun now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he,

Still hid in mist, and on the left

Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,

But no sweet bird did follow,

Nor any day for food or play

Came to the mariners' hollo !

His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner, for killing the bird of good luck.

And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird

That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to sla
That made the breeze to blow !

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,

The glorious Sun uprist :

Then all averred, I had killed the bird

That brought the fog and mist.

But when the fog cleared off, they justify the sameand thus

make them

selves accom,

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay, plices in the

That bring the fog and mist.

crime.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The fair

And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion,

As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;

Water water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs

Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

And some in dreams assured were

Of the spirit that plagued us so :
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was wither'd at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choak'd with soot.

A spirit had followed

them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus,

About my neck was hung.

The ship-
mates, in
their sore

distress, would fain

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

PART THE THIRD.

The ancient

Mariner be

THERE passed a weary time. Each throat

Was parched, and glazed each eye.

A weary time! a weary time!

How glazed each weary eye!

When looking westward, I beheld

holdeth a sign A something in the sky.

in the ele

ment afar off.

At first it seem'd a little speck,

And then it seem'd a mist :

It moved and moved, and took at last

A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it near'd and near'd:
And as if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged and tack'd and veer'd.