If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.'

The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life

could endure.

FIRST VOICE

'But why drives on that ship so fast, Without or wave or wind?'

SECOND VOICE

'The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!

Or we shall be belated:

For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner's trance is

abated.'

The supernatural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes

and his penance begins anew.

The curse is finally expiated.

I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:

'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high;

The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fix'd on me their stony eyes
That in the Moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,

Had never pass'd away:

I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapt: once

more

I viewed the ocean green,

And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen-

Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,

And having once turned round walks

on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows, a frightful fiend

Doth close behind him tread.

And the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.

But soon there breathed a wind on

me,

Nor sound nor motion made:

Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fann'd my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sail'd softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze-
On me alone it blew.

Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?

Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?

We drifted o'er the harbor-bar,
And I with sobs did pray-
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbor-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!

And on the bay the moonlight lay,

And the shadow of the Moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,

That stands above the rock:

The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,

Till rising from the same,

Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colors came.

The angelic spirits A little distance from the prow

leave the dead

bodies,

Those crimson shadows were:

I turned my eyes upon the deck-
Oh, Christ! what saw I there!

And appear in their own forms of

light.

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!

A man all light, a seraph-man,

On every corse there stood.

This seraph-band, each waved his hand;

It was a heavenly sight;

They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,

No voice did they impart—

No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot's cheer;

My head was turn'd perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:

Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy

The dead men could not blast.

I saw a third-I heard his voice:
It is the Hermit good!

He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he maketh in the wood.

He'll shrive my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross's blood."

The Hermit of the
Wood

PART VII

"This Hermit good lives in the wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.