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                                                             Part V

«Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,                                      By grace of the holy Mother,
That had so long remained,                                          the ancient Mariner is
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;                                 refreshed with rain. 
And when I awoke, it rained. 

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 moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light -almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a bless?d ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:                                  He heareth sounds and
It did not come anear;                                                   seeth strange sights and
But with its sound it shook the sails,                                  commotions in the sky and
That were so thin and sere.                                           the element. 

The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The Moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,                         The bodies of the ship's
Yet now the ship moved on!                                        crew are inspired, and the 
Beneath the lightning and the Moon                              ship moves on; 
The dead men gave a groan. 

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools -
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me».

«I fear thee, ancient Mariner!»                                      But not by the souls of
«Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest!                                   the men, nor by demons of
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,                           earth or middle air, but by 
Which to their corses came again,                                 a blessed troop of angelic
But a troop of spirits blest:                                            spirits, sent down by the
                                                                                                                invocation of the guardian
                                                                                                                saint.

For when it dawned - they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

It ceased ; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,                                 The lonesome Spirit from
From the land of mist and snow,                                   the south-pole carries on
The spirit slid: and it was he                                          the ship as far as the Line,
That made the ship to go.                                               in obedience to the angelic
The sails at noon left off their tune,                                troop, but still requireth
And the ship stood still also.                                         vengeance. 

The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion -
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

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,                                     The Polar Spirit's fellow-demons,
I have not to declare;                                                   the in the element, take part in
But ere my living life returned,                                      his wrong; and two of them 
I heard and in my soul discerned                                  relate, one to the other, that 
Two voices in the air.                                                  penance long and heavy for the 
                                                                                                              ancient Mariner hath been
'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man?                           accorded to the Polar Spirit,
By him who died on cross,                                          who returneth southward. 
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
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,
And penance more will do'».

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