THE ANCIENT MARINER,

AND

CHRIST ABEL.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER.

IN SEVEN PARTS.

FACILE credo, plures esse Naturas, invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit, et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera? Quid agunt? quæ loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabulâ, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernæ vitæ minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus.

IT is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

"By thy long gray beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ?

"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ;

The guests are met, the feast is set :

May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand,

There was a ship," quoth he.

"Hold off! unhand me, graybeard loon!"
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye-
The wedding-guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child :
The Mariner hath his will.

The wedding-guest sat on a stone:
He can not choose but hear;

The Mariner tells

how the ship sail.

ed southward with a good wind

And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill.

Below the light-house top.

The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!

and fair weather, And he shone bright, and on the right

till it reached the

line.

The wedding guest heareth the bridal music; but

the mariner continueth his tale.

The ship drawn by a storm toward the south pole.

Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he can not choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,

And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold.

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen :

Nor shapes of men nor beast we ken-
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Through the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moon-shine.

"God save thee, ancient Mariner !

From the fiends, that plague thee thus !—
Why look'st thou so?"-With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.

The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great seabird called the Albatross, came through the snow fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.

And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen,and followeth the ship as it returneth northward through fog and floating ice.

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good

omen.