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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,(390)
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

“The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,(400)
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,(405)
And penance more will do.”

Part the Sixth.

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?(410)

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;(415)
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 ves
sel to drive northward
faster than human life
could endure.

FIRST VOICE.

But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?(420)

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,(425)
When the Mariner's trance is abated.

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,(435)
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,(445)
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:(450)
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,(455)
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.(460)

We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,(465)
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!(470)
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the Moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness(475)
The steady weathercock.

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,(485)
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.

This seraph band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!(490)
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light:

This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart—
No voice; but oh! the silence sank(495)
Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars;
I heard the Pilot's cheer;
My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.(500)

The Pilot, and the Pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.

I saw a third—I heard his voice:(505)
It is the Hermit good!
He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross's blood.(510)

Part the Seventh.

He kneels at morn and noon and eve—
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.

The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,(520)
“Why this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?”

“Brown skeletons of leaves that lag(530)
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young.”

“Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—(535)
(The Pilot made reply)
I am a-feared”—“Push on, push on!”
Said the Hermit cheerily.

• a fainting spell
• The one voice is swearing by Jesus.
• this phrase indicates that the dead men looked as if they were in a morgue-like [charnel] dungeon, all dressed in rags and shreds of clothing [fitter]
• The “holy rood” is the cross; the Mariner, therefore, is swearing by the cross.
• a seraph, a class of angel
• by necessity
• See note: hermit's cave in the “Tintern Abbey” glossary above.
• variant form of shrive, to hear confession and offer absolution
• to think, suppose
• The quotation here indicate a dialogue between the hermit and the pilot of the boat.
• anything
• a heavy mass

1. Notes
2. Reading Pointers for Sharper Insights
3. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
4. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in Seven Parts
5. Copyright