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:
It is the Hermit good!

He singeth loud his godly hymns

That he makes in the wood.

540

He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
The Albatross's blood.

545

VII

This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the Sea.

How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with Marineres

550

That come from a far Contrée.

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.

555

The Skiff-boat ne'rd: I heard them talk, "Why, this is strange, I trow!

"Where are those lights so many and fair "That signal made but now?

"Strange, by my faith! the Hermit said

560

"The planks look warp'd, and see those sails

"When the Ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

"And the Owlet whoops to the wolf below "That eats the she-wolf's young.

570

Dear Lord! it has a fiendish look

(The Pilot made reply)

"I am afear'd-"Push on, push on! "Said the Hermit cheerily.

The Boat came closer to the Ship,
But I ne spake ne stirr'd!

The Boat came close beneath the Ship,
And strait a sound was heard!

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:
It reach'd the Ship, it split the bay;
The Ship went down like lead.

Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote:

Like one that had been seven days drown'd
My body lay afloat:

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.

I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,

590

595

Laugh'd loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro,

600

"Ha! ha!" quoth he-"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.

66

"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy Man! The Hermit cross'd his brow—

"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say
"What manner man art thou?"

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd
With a woeful agony,

Which forc'd me to begin my tale

And then it left me free.

60%

610

Since then at an uncertain hour,

615

Now oftimes and now fewer,

That anguish comes and makes me tell
My ghastly aventure.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see

620

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;

625

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 Marinere, whose eye is bright
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the wedding-guest
Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.

645

650

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.

F

THE RAVEN

[As printed in the Morning Post, March 10, 1798.]

[Vide ante, p. 169.]

UNDER the arms of a goodly oak-tree,
There was of Swine a large company.
They were making a rude repast,
Grunting as they crunch'd the mast.

Then they trotted away: for the wind blew high-
One acorn they left, ne more mote you spy.
Next came a Raven, who lik'd not such folly;
He belong'd, I believe, to the witch MELANCHOLY!
Blacker was he than the blackest jet;

Flew low in the rain; his feathers were wet.
He pick'd up the acorn and buried it strait,
By the side of a river both deep and great.
Where then did the Raven go?

He went high and low

O'er hill, o'er dale did the black Raven go!
Many Autumns, many Springs;
Travell'd he with wand'ring wings;
Many Summers, many Winters-
I can't tell half his adventures.

At length he return'd, and with him a she;
And the acorn was grown a large oak-tree.
They built them a nest in the topmost bough,
And young ones they had, and were jolly enow.
But soon came a Woodman in leathern guise:
His brow like a pent-house hung over his eyes.
He'd an axe in his hand, and he nothing spoke,
But with many a hem! and a sturdy stroke,
At last he brought down the poor Raven's own oak.
His young ones were kill'd, for they could not depart,
And his wife she did die of a broken heart!

5

10

15

20

25

30

The branches from off it the Woodman did sever!
And they floated it down on the course of the River:
They saw'd it to planks, and it's rind they did strip,
And with this tree and others they built up a ship.
The ship, it was launch'd; but in sight of the land,
A tempest arose which no ship could withstand.
It bulg'd on a rock, and the waves rush'd in fast
The auld Raven flew round and round, and caw'd to the
blast.

He heard the sea-shriek of their perishing souls--
They be sunk! O'er the top-mast the mad water rolls.
The Raven was glad that such fate they did meet,
They had taken his all, and REVENGE WAS SWEET!

35

40

G

LEWTI; OR THE CIRCASSIAN'S LOVE-CHANT1

[Vide ante, p. 253.]

(1)

[Add. MSS. 27,902.]

HIGH o'er the silver rocks I roved
To forget the form I loved

In hopes fond fancy would be kind.
And steal my Mary from my mind

T'was twilight and the lunar beam
Sailed slowly o'er Tamaha's stream
As down its sides the water strayed
Bright on a rock the moonbeam playe[d]
It shone, half-sheltered from the view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew
True, true to love but false to rest,
So fancy whispered to my breast,

So shines her forehead smooth and fair
Gleaming through her sable hair

I turned to heaven-but viewed on high
The languid lustre of her eye

5

10

15

1 The first ten lines of MS. version (1) were first published in Note 44 of P. W., 1893, p. 518, and the MS. as a whole is included in Coleridge's Poems, A Facsimile Reproduction of The Proofs and MSS., &c., 1899, pp. 182-4. MSS. (2) and (3) are now printed for the first time.