The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Illustrated Edition). Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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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 eldritch 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,

       Ne rot, ne 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 morning frosts yspread;

       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:

       Blue, glossy green, and velvet black

       They coil’d 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 bless’d them unaware!

       Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

       And I bless’d them unaware.

      The selfsame moment I could pray;

       And from my neck so free

       The Albatross fell off, and sank

       Like lead into the sea.

      V.

      O sleep, it is a gentle thing

       Belov’d from pole to pole!

       To Mary-queen the praise be yeven

       She sent the gentle sleep from heaven

       That slid into my soul.

      The silly buckets on the deck

       That had so long remain’d,

       I dreamt that they were fill’d with dew

       And when I awoke it rain’d.

      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 mov’d and could not feel my limbs,

       I was so light, almost

       I thought that I had died in sleep,

       And was a blessed Ghost.

      The roaring wind! it roar’d far off,

       It did not come anear;

       But with its sound it shook the sails

       That were so thin and sere.

      The upper air bursts into life,

       And a hundred fire-flags sheen

       To and fro they are hurried about;

       And to and fro, and in and out

       The stars dance on between.

      The coming wind doth roar more loud;

       The sails do sigh, like sedge:

       The rain pours down from one black cloud

       And the Moon is at its edge.

      Hark! hark! the thick black cloud is cleft,

       And the Moon is at its side:

       Like waters shot from some high crag,

       The lightning falls with never a jag

       A river steep and wide.

      The strong wind reach’d the ship: it roar’d

       And dropp’d down, like a stone!

       Beneath the lightning and the moon

       The dead men gave a groan.

      They groan’d, they stirr’d, they all uprose,

      

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