Still baffled, and yet burning still! Desire with loathing strangely mixed On wild or hateful objects fixed. Fantastic passions! maddening brawl! And shame and terror over all! Deeds to be hid which were not hid, Which all confused I could not know, Whether I suffered, or I did: For all seemed guilt, remorse, or woe, My own or others still the same Life-stifling fear, soul-stifling shame.
So two nights pass'd: the night's dismay Saddened and stunned the coming day. Sleep, the wide blessing, seemed to me Distemper's worst calamity.
The third night, when my own loud scream Had waked me from the fiendish dream, O'ercome with sufferings strange and wild, I wept as I had been a child;
And having thus by tears subdued My anguish to a milder mood, Such punishments, I said, were due To natures deepliest stained with sin,— For aye entempesting anew
The unfathomable hell within
The horror of their deeds to view, To know and loathe, yet wish and do! Such griefs with such men well agree, But wherefore, wherefore fall on me? To be beloved is all I need,
And whom I love, I love indeed.
IS a strange place, this Limbo!—not a Place, Yet name it so ;-where Time and weary Space Fettered from flight, with night-mare sense of fleeing, Strive for their last crepuscular half-being;- Lank Space, and scytheless Time with branny hands Barren and soundless as the measuring sands, Not mark'd by flit of Shades,-unmeaning they As moonlight on the dial of the day!
But that is lovely-looks like human Time,— An old man with a steady look sublime, That stops his earthly task to watch the skies; But he is blind—a statue hath such eyes;— Yet having moonward turn'd his face by chance, Gazes the orb with moon-like countenance, With scant white hairs, with foretop bold and high, He gazes still,-his eyeless face all eye;— As 'twere an organ full of silent sight, His whole face seemeth to rejoice in light!— Lip touching lip, all moveless, bust and limb- He seems to gaze at that which seems to gaze on him! No such sweet sights doth Limbo den immure, Wall'd round, and made a spirit-jail secure, By the mere horror of blank Naught-at-all, Whose circumambience doth these ghosts enthral. A lurid thought is growthless, dull Privation, Yet that is but a Purgatory curse;
Hell knows a fear far worse,
A fear-a future state;-'tis positive Negation!
OLE Positive of Night! Antipathist of Light!
Fate's only essence! primal scorpion rod- The one permitted opposite of God!- Condensed blackness and abysmal storm Compacted to one sceptre
Arms the Grasp enorm- The Intercepter-
The Substance that still casts the shadow Death! The Dragon foul and fell—
The unrevealable,
And hidden one, whose breath
Gives wind and fuel to the fires of Hell!- Ah! sole despair
Of both th' eternities in Heaven! Sole interdict of all-bedewing prayer, The all-compassionate!
Save to the Lampads Seven Reveal'd to none of all th' Angelic State, Save to the Lampads Seven,
That watch the throne of Heaven!
FACILE credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit, et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera? Quid agunt? quæ loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabulâ, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernæ vitæ minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, mo- dusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distin- guamus. T. BURNET. ARCHEOL. PHIL. p. 68.
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, And I am next of kin ;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."
He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.
An ancient Mariner meeteth three gallants bidden to a wedding-feast, and detaineth
"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!" Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
The wedding. He holds him with his glittering eye- guest is spell- bound by the The wedding-guest stood still, eye of the old
sea-faring man, and
constrained to hear his tale.
tells how the
ship sailed southward
with a good
And listens like a three year's child: The Mariner hath his will.
The wedding-guest sat on a stone: He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.
The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the light house top.
The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
wind and fair Went down into the sea.
weather till
it reached the
Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast, For he heard the loud bassoon.
The wedding. The bride hath paced into the hall, guest heareth Red as a rose is she;
the bridal
music; but
the mariner continueth
his tale.
Nodding their heads before her goes The merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast, Yet he cannot choose but hear;
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