Like waters shot from some high crag, The loud wind never reached the ship, Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the moon They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, 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- The body of my brother's son The body and I pulled at one rope, "I fear thee, ancient Mariner !” The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on; But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint. 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 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 noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Till noon we quietly sailed on, Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Under the keel nine fathom deep, The sails at noon left off their tune, The Sun, right up above the mast, Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion. The lonesome The Polar Spirit's fellow demons, the invisible inhabitants of the ele ment, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and hea vy for the an cient Mari ner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward. With his cruel bow he laid full low "The spirit who bideth by himself 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, PART VI. FIRST VOICE. BUT tell me, tell me! speak again, Thy soft response renewing— What makes that ship drive on so fast? What is the ocean doing? SECOND VOICE. Still as a slave before his lord, The ocean hath no blast; His great bright eye most silently Up to the Moon is cast If he may know which way to go; She looketh down on him. 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! For slow and slow that ship will go, I woke, and we were sailing on 'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high; All stood together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: All fixed on me their stony eyes, That in the Moon did glitter. The pang, the curse, with which they died, The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure. The supernatural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew |