Jet-black and bare, save where with rust
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust

They were patched with purple and green.

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy,
And she was far liker Death than he;
Her flesh made the still air cold.

The naked hulk alongside came

And the twain were playing dice;

'The game is done! I've won, I've won!' Quoth she, and whistled thrice.

A gust of wind sterte up behind

And whistled through his bones;

Thro' the hole of his eyes and the hole of his mouth Half-whistles and half-groans.

With never a whisper in the sea
Off darts the spectre-ship;

While clombe above the eastern bar
The horned moon, with one bright star
Almost between the tips.

One after one by the horned moon (Listen, O stranger! to me)

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang

And cursed me with his ee.

Four times fifty living men,

With never a sigh or groan,

With heavy thump, a lifeless lump

They dropped down one by one.

Their souls did from their bodies fly,

They fled to bliss or woe;

And every soul it passed me by,

Like the whiz of my cross-bow."

PART IV.

"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 the wide wide sea; And Christ would take no pity on My soul in agony.

The many men so beautiful,

And they all dead did lie!
And a million million slimy things
Lived on-and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the ghastly 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,
Till the balls like pulses beat;

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.

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 O! more horrible than that

Is the 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

Her beams bemocked the sultry main
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship
I watched the water-snakes:

They moved in tracks of shining white; And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship

I watched their rich attire. Blue, glossy green, and velvet black They coiled and swam; and every track Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gusht from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware!

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank

Like lead into the sea."

PART V.

"O 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!