e done,
And penance more will do."
PART VI
_First Voice_
"BUT tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing--
What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the Ocean doing?"
_Second Voice_
"Still as a slave before his lord,
The Ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast--
If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him."
[The Mariner hath been cast into a trance;
for the angelic power causeth the vessel to
drive northward, faster than human life could
endure.]
_First Voice_
"But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?"
_Second Voice_
"The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.
Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner's trance is abated."
[The supernatural motion is retarded; the
Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew.]
I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high
The dead men stood together.
All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.
The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.
[The curse is finally expiated,]
And now this spell was snapt: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen.
Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round, walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
But soon there breathed a wind on me
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.
It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring--
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
On me alone it blew.
[And the ancient Mariner beholdeth
his native country.]
Oh dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray--
"O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep a
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