How fast she nears and nears!Are those her Sails that glance in the Sun
Like restless gossameres?
Are those her Ribs, thro’ which the Sun
Did peer, as thro’ a grate?
And are those two all, all her crew.
That Woman, and her Mate?
His bones were black with many a crack,
All black and bare, I ween;
Jet-black and bare, save where with rust
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust
They were patch’d 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 thro’ his bones;
Thro’ the holes 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 turn’d his face with a ghastly pang
And curs’d me with his ee.
Four times fifty living men,
With never a sigh or groan,
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump
They dropp’d down one by one.
Their souls did from their bodies fly, —
They fled to bliss or woe;
And every soul it pass’d me by,
Like, the whiz of my Cross-bow.
IV.
”I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand;
And thou art long and lank and brown
As is the ribb’d 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
Liv’d on — and so did I.
I look’d upon the rotting Sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I look’d upon the ghastly deck,
And there the dead men lay.
I look’d to Heaven, and try’d to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came and made
My heart as dry as dust.
I clos’d 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 look’d on me,
Had never pass’d 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 bemock’d 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 watch’d the water-snakes:
They mov’d in tracks of shining white;
And when they rear’d, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watch’d their rich attire:
