The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner
Part V. (Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,...)
by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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. | By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain. |
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. | He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element. |
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. | The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on; |
They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise. | |
The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; Yet never a breeze up blew; The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do; They raised their limbs like lifeless tools -- We were a ghastly crew. | |
The body of my brother's son Stood by me, knee to knee: The body and I pulled at one rope, But he said nought to me. | |
I fear thee, ancient Mariner! Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest! 'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, Which to their corses came again, But a troop of spirits blest: | But not by the souls of the men, nor by dæmons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint. |
For when it dawned -- they dropped their arms, And clustered round the mast; Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies passed. | |
Around, around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one. | |
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky I heard the sky-lark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, How they seemed to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning! | |
And now 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, That makes the heavens be mute. | |
It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. | |
Till noon we quietly sailed on, Yet never a breeze did breathe: Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Moved onward from beneath. | |
Under the keel nine fathom deep, From the land of mist and snow, The spirit slid: and it was he That made the ship to go. The sails at noon left off their tune, And the ship stood still also. | 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 Sun, right up above the mast, Had fixed her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir, With a short uneasy motion -- Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion. | |
Then like a pawing horse let go, She made a sudden bound: It flung the blood into my head, And I fell down in a swound. | |
How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; But ere my living life returned, I heard and in my soul discerned Two voices in the air. | The Polar Spirit's fellow-dæmons, the invisible inhabitants of the element take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward. |
Is it he?quoth one, "Is this the man ? By him who died on cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless Albatross. | |
The spirit who bideth by himself In the land of mist and snow, He loved the bird that loved the man Who shot him with his bow." | |
The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew: Quoth he, The man hath penance done, |
Source:
The Golden Book Of ColeridgeCopyright 1914
London: J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd.
New York: E. P. Dutton & Co.