primitive in its ceremonies, unequalled in its liturgical England, in a tolerating age, has shown herself emiforms; that our Church, which has kindled and dis-nently tolerant, and far more so, both in Spirit and in played more bright and burning lights of Genius and fact, that many of her most bitter opponents, who Learning, than all other Protestant churches since profess to deem toleration itself an insult on the the Reformation, was (with the single exception of rights of mankind! As to myself, who not only know the times of Laud and Sheldon) least intolerant, the Church-Establishment to be tolerant, but who when all Christians unhappily deemed a species of see in it the greatest, if not the sole safe bulwark of intolerance their religious duty; that Bishops of our Toleration, I feel no necessity of defending or palchurch were among the first that contended against liating oppressions under the two Charleses, in order this error; and finally, that since the Reformation, to exclaim with a full and fervent heart, ESTO PERwhen tolerance became a fashion, the Church of PETUA! 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.-T. BURNET: Archeol. Phil. p. 68. The weddingguest is spell bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale. The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the line And he stoppeth one of three: The bride hath paced into the hall, The wedding- By thy long gray beard and glitter-The merry minstrelsy. ing eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ? "The Bridegroom's doors are open'd wide, And I am next of kin ; The guests are met, the feast is set: He holds him with his skinny hand: 46 "Hold off! unhand me, gray-beard loon!" Eftsoons his hand dropt he. The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, Yet he cannot choose but hear; And thus spake on that ancient man, tinueth his tale. And now the STORM-BLAST came, and The ship drawn he Was tyrannous and strong: He struck with his o'ertaking wings, With sloping masts and dripping prow, He holds him with his glittering eye-And forward bends his head, And listens like a three-years' child;| The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone, And thus spake on that ancient man, The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the And southward aye we fled. And now there came both mist and Aud it grew wondrous cold; by a storm toward the south pole The ship was cheer'd, the harbor And through the drifts the snowy clifts The land of ice, clear'd, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, The Sun came up upon the left, Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon Did send a dismal sheen: The ice was all between. The ice was here, the ice was there, It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and Like noises in a swound! At length did cross an Albatross : The Wedding-Guest here beat his Thorough the fog it came; breast, For he heard the loud bassoon. As if it had been a Christian soul, 70 and of fearful sounds, where no living thing was to be seen. Till a great seabird, called the Albatross, came through the snowfog, and was received with great joy and hospital It ate the food it ne'er had eat, And lo! the Al- And a good south-wind sprung up batross proveth a bird of good omen, and follow behind; The Albatross did follow, eth the ship as it And every day, for food or play, Came to the mariner's hollo! returned north ward through fog and floating ice. The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen. His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner, for killing the bird of good-luck. But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves ac Day after day, day after day, Water, water, everywhere, The very deep did rot: O Christ! In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,That ever this should be! Why look'st thou so?"-With my And some in dreams assured were cross-bow I shot the ALBATROSS. PART II. Of the spirit that plagued us so; And the Albatross begins to be avenged. A spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet,--neither departed souls nor angels; con THE Sun now rose upon the right: cerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Still hid in mist, and on the left Constantinopolitan, Michael P'sellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more. And the good south-wind still blew And every tongue, through utter Nor dim nor red, like God's own THERE pass'd a weary time. Each head, Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird complices in the That brought the fog and mist. "T was right, said they, such birds to slay crime. That bring the fog and mist. throat Was parch'd, and glazed each eye. At first it seem'd a little speck, The fair breeze The fair breeze blew, the white foam And then it seem'd a mist; Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt As if it dodged a water-sprite, down, "T was sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break All in a hot and copper sky, It plunged and tack'd and veer'd. The shipmates, in The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off. With throats unslaked, with black At its nearer ap- We could nor laugh nor wail; stood; I bit my arm, I suck'd the blood, proach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst. 62 With throats unslaked, with black One after one, by the star-dogged One after anlips baked, Agape they heard me call; A flash of joy. Gramercy! they for joy did grin, It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship. And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the Betting Sun. The spectrewoman and her death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton-ship. Like vessel, like crew! And all at once their breath drew in, See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! The western wave was all a flame, Betwixt us and the Sun. Moon, Too quick for groan or sigh, pang, And cursed me with his eye. Four times fifty living men PART IV. "I FEAR thee, ancient Mariner! And straight the Sun was fleck'd I fear thy skinny hand! with bars, (Heaven's Mother send us grace!) With broad and burning face. And thou art long, and lank, and As is the ribb'd sea-sand.* "I fear thee and thy glittering eye, But Life-in Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner. The weddingguest feareth that a spirit is talking to him; Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding- But the ancient Guest! This body dropt not down. Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! Are those her ribs through which the My soul in agony. And never a saint took pity on Sun Did peer, as through a grate; And is that woman all her crew? Her lips were red, her looks were Her locks were yellow as gold: Who thicks man's blood with cold. Death, and Life- The naked hulk alongside came, The many men, so beautiful! Lived on; and so did I. I look'd upon the rotting sea, I look'd to Heaven, and tried to pray; I closed my lids, and kept them close, Lay like a load on my weary eye At one stride comes the Dark; We listen'd and look'd sideways up! The cold sweat melted from their 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. But the curse liv [me eth for him in the eye of the dead Nor rot nor reek did they; An orphan's curse would drag to Hell men. Wordsworth. It was on a delightful walk from Nether Stowey *For the two last lines of this stanza, I am indebted to Mr. to Dulverton, with him and his sister, in the Autumn of 1797, that this Poem was planned, and in part composed. The upper air burst into life! In his loneliness The moving Moon went up the sky, And a hundred fire-flags sheen, and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still so And nowhere did abide : Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside journ, yet still move onward; and everywhere 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. By the light of the Moon he be holdeth God's ⚫ creatures of the great calm. Their beauty and their happiness. He blesseth them in his heart. Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, The charmed water burnt alway Beyond the shadow of the ship And when they rear'd, the elfish light Within the shadow of the ship Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, Was a flash of golden fire. O happy living things! no tongue A spring of love gush'd from my And I bless'd them unaware: The spell begins The self-same moment I could pray; to break. By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain. The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea. PART V. On Sleep! it is a gentle thing, That slid into my soul. The silly buckets on the deck, My lips were wet, my throat was cold, To and fro they were hurried about! And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; 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. in the sky and the element. I moved, and could not feel my Around, around, flew each sweet limbs : I was so light-almost I thought that I had died in sleep, And was a blessed ghost. sound, Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mix'd, now one by one. The lonesome spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as far as the line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance. The Polar Spirit's fellow dæmons, the invisible inhabitants of the Sometimes, a-drooping from the sky, With their sweet jargoning! PART VI. FIRST VOICE. BUT tell me, tell me! speak again, And now 't was like all instruments, What is the OCEAN doing? . Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, That makes the Heavens be mute. SECOND VOICE. Still as a slave before his lord, It ceased; yet still the sails made on Up to the Moon is cast A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, If he may know which way to go; That to the sleeping woods all night See, brother, see! how graciously Singeth a quiet tune. Till noon we quietly sailed on, Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Moved onward from beneath. Under the keel nine fathom deep, The sails at noon left off their tune, The Sun, right up above the mast, With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go, How long in that same fit I lay, in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that pen ance long and Two VOICES in the air. her "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the heavy for the an- By him who died on cross, cient Mariner hath been accord- With his cruel bow he laid full low Of what had else been seen |