approacheth the ship with wonder.

He hath a cushion plump:

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 -
"And they answered not our cheer!

The planks looked warped! and see those sails
How thin they are and sere!

I never saw aught like to them,

Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag

My forest-brook along;

When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

And the owlet whoops to the wolf below
That eats the she-wolf's young."

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;

The boat came close beneath the ship,

And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread:

It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,

Like one that hath been seven days drowned

My body lay afloat;

But swift as dreams, myself I found

Within the Pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,

The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips - the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;

The holy Hermit raised his eyes

And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,

Who now doth crazy go,

Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro.

"Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see, The Devil knows how to row."

And now, all in my own countree,
I stood on the firm land!

The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!"
The Hermit crossed his brow.

"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say What manner of man art thou?"

The ship suddenly sinketh.

The ancient
Mariner is

saved in the
Pilot's boat.

The ancient
Mariner

earnestly en-
treateth 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.

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woeful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!

The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden-bower the bride

And bride-maids singing are;

And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea:

So lonely 't was, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the marriage-feast
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!-

To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.