PART VI. 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. The curse is finally expiated ;-and the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.-The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,-and appear in their own forms of light. FIRST VOICE. "BUT tell me, tell me! speak again, What makes that ship drive on so fast? 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; FIRST VOICE. "But why drives on that ship so fast, 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, When the Mariner's trance is abated,' "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 view'd the ocean green, And look'd 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 turn'd round walks on And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. "But soon there breathed a wind on me, Nor sound nor motion made: Its path was not upon the sea, "It raised my hair, it fann'd my cheek "Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze- "O! 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 harbour-bar, "The harbour-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 steep'd 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 colours came. "A little distance from the prow "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 "The pilot, and the pilot's boy, The dead men could not blast. "I saw a third-I heard his voice: It is the Hermit good! He singeth aloud his godly hymns That he makes in the wood. He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away PART VII. The Hermit of the Wood-approacheth the ship with wonder.— The ship suddenly sinketh.-The ancient Mariner is saved in the pilot's boat.-The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve 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 ;-and to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth. "THIS Hermit good lives in that wood How loudly his sweet voice he rears! That come from a far countree. "He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve- It is the moss that wholly hides The rotted old oak-stump. "The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk, 'Why, this is strange, I trow! Where are those lights so many and fair, That signal made but now? "Strange, by my faith!' the Hermit said- The planks look warp'd! and see those sails I never saw aught like to them, Unless perchance it were |