same easiness of style which he admires in a drinking-song, for him I have not written. Intelligibilia, non intellectum adfero.

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I expect neither profit nor general fame by my writings; and I consider myself as having been amply repaid without either. Poetry has been to me its own exceeding great reward:" it has soothed my afflictions; it has multiplied and refined my enjoyments; it has endeared solitude; and it has given me the habit of wishing to discover the Good and the Beautiful in all that meets and surrounds me.*

S. T. C.

*The above Preface was prefixed by the author to the third edition of the Juvenile Poems, in 1803, and transferred by him without alteration to the collected edition of his poetical works in 1828. It is made up from the Prefaces to the first two editions of his Poems, and referred, in the first instance, to the earlier productions of his Muse. In the Preface to the Sibylline Leaves, which he did not reprint, he states that that collection was "presented to the reader as perfect as the author's skill and powers could render them;" adding, that "henceforward he must be occupied by studies of a very different kind."

In pity

to your

lover!

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

66

'By thy long grey 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, grey-beard 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 cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

* See Note.

An ancient Mariner meeteth three gallants bidden to a wedding feast, and detaineth

one

The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.

A

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the light-house top.

The Mariner The sun came up upon the left,

tells how the Out of the sea came he!

ship sailed southward

with a good

wind and fair weather, till it reached the line.

The Wedding-Guest heareth the bridal music;

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

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

Nodding their heads before her goes

but the Ma- The merry minstrelsy.

riner continueth his

tale.

The ship drawn by a storm toward the south pole.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot 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.

The land of And through the drifts the snowy clifts

ice, and of

fearful

soundswhere

no living

thing was to be seen.

Did send a dismal sheen :

Nor shapes of men nor beasts 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!