But, swift as dreams, myself I found

Within the Pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the Ship,

The boat spun round and round : And all was still, save that the hill

Was telling of the sound.

I mov'd my lips : the Pilot shriek'd

And fell down in a fit.
The Holy Hermit rais'd his eyes

And pray'd where he did sit.

1 took the oars : the Pilot's boy,

Who now doth crazy go, Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro, “ Ha! ha!" quoth hem" full plain I see,

“ The devil knows how to row.”

And now all in mine own Countrée

I stood on the firm land ! The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,

And scarcely he could stand.

** O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy Man !"

The Hermit crossd his brow
Say quick," quoth he, I bid thee say
• What manner man art thou?

Forthwith this frame of mind was wrench'd

With a woeful agony,
Which forc'd me to begin my tale

And then it left me free.

Since then at an uncertain hour,
That
agency

returns ;
And till my ghastly tale is told

This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see
I know the man that must hear me ;

To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door !

The Wedding-guests are there; But in the Garden-bower the Bride

And Bride-maids singing are : Aind hark the little Vesper-bell

Which biddeth me to prayer.

O-Wedding-guest ! this soul-hath been:

Alone on a wide wide sea :
So lonely 'twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.

O sweeter than the Marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me To walk together to the Kirk

With a goodly company.

To walk together to the Kirk

And all together pray, While each to his great fatber bends, Old men, and babes, and loving friends,

And Youths, and Maidens gay.

Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell

To thee, thou wedding-guest! He prayeth well who loveth well

Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best who loveth best:

All things both great and small : For the dear God, who loveth us,

He made and loveth all.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,

Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the wedding-guest

Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.

He went, like one that hath been stunn'd

And is of sense forlorn :

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.