Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

The souls did from their bodies fly,-
They fled to bliss or woe!

And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my CROSS-BOW!

His shipmates drop down dead;

But LIFE-INDEATH begins her work on the ancient Mariner.

PART THE FOURTH.

"I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner !

I fear thy skinny hand!

And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.*

I fear thee and thy glittering eye,,
And thy skinny hand, so brown.

Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropt not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:

And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,

And drew my eyes away;

I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to Heaven, and tried to pray;

But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came, and made

My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,

And the balls like pulses beat;

The Wedding. Guest feareth that a spirit is talking to him;

But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horrible penance.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm.

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,

And the dead were at my feet.

*For the two last lines of this stanza, I am indebted to Mr. WORDSWORTH. It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey to Dulverton, with him and his sister, in the Autumn of 1797, that this Poem was planned, and in part composed.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they :

The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to Hell
A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that

Is a curse in a dead man's eye!

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky,

And no where did abide:

Softly she was going up,

And a star or two beside

sojourn, yet still move onward; and every where the blue sky, belongs to them, and is their appointed rest, and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.

PART THE FIFTH.

OH SLEEP! it is a gentle thing,

Beloved from pole to pole!

To Mary Queen the praise be given !
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,

I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;

Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs :
I was so light-almost

I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;

But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,

The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;

And the rain poured down from one black cloud;

The Moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still

The Moon was at its side :

Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon

The dead men gave a groan.

By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.

He heareth sounds, and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.

The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and

the ship moves

on;