Coleridges Famous Poem Rime of the Ancient Mariner or this week, you have been asked to read Coleridge’s famous poem, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”
For this week’s response, please comment on the inclusion of symbols, especially the albatross.
Why does the Mariner shoot the Albatross? Is any reason given in the poem? How is the albatross more than a plain old albatross — what is its spiritual significance, if any?
What do you make of the “breeze” that blows through the poem — i.e. that at certain points the Mariner’s ship is becalmed or takes sail?
Please comment on any other symbols that you noticed while reading this poem. Make sure to use direct quotes from the poem as support.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798)
PART I
An ancient Mariner
meeteth three gallants
bidden to a wedding feast,
and detaineth one.
IT is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
‘By thy long beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?
The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide, 5
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. 10
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
The Wedding-Guest is
spell-bound by the eye of
the old seafaring man,
and constrained to hear
his tale.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child: 15
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. 20
‘The ship was cheer’d, the harbour clear’d,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.
The Mariner tells how the
ship sailed southward with
a good wind and fair
weather, till it reached the
Line.
The Sun came up upon the left, 25
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.
Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon——’
30
The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
The Wedding-Guest The bride hath paced into the hall,
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heareth the bridal music;
but the Mariner continueth
his tale.
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes 35
The merry minstrelsy.
The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner. 40
The ship drawn by a
storm toward the South
Pole.
‘And now the Storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong:
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.
With sloping masts and dipping prow, 45
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roar’d the blast,
The southward aye we fled. 50
And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
The land of ice, and of
fearful sounds, where no
living thing was to be
seen.
And through the drifts the snowy clifts 55
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.
The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around: 60
It crack’d and growl’d, and roar’d and howl’d,
Like noises in a swound!
Till a great sea-bird,
called the Albatross,
came through the snowfog,
and was received
with great joy and
hospitality.
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul, 65
We hail’d it in God’s name.
It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steer’d us through! 70
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And lo! the Albatross
proveth a bird of good
omen, and followeth the
ship as it returned
northward through fog
and floating ice.
And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariners’ hollo!
In mist or cloud, on mast or shrou
suddenly becalmed. ‘Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea! 110
All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
Day after day, day after day, 115
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
And the Albatross begins
to be avenged.
Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink; 120
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 125
Upon the slimy sea.
About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white. 130
A Spirit had followed
them; one of the invisible
inhabitants of this planet,
neither departed souls nor
angels; concerning whom
the learned Jew,
Josephus, and the
Platonic
Constantinopolitan,
Michael Psellus, may be
consulted. They are very
numerous, and there is no
climate or element without
one or more.
And some in dreams assuréd were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.
And every tongue, through utter drought, 135
Was wither’d at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
The shipmates in their
sore distress, would fain
throw the whole guilt on
the ancient Mariner: in
sign whereof they hang
the dead sea-bird round
his neck.
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young! 140
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
PART III
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‘There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parch’d, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time! 145
How glazed each weary eye!
The ancient Mariner
beholdeth a sign in the
element afar off.
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.
At first it seem’d a little speck,
And then it seem’d a mist; 150
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.
A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it near’d and near’d:
As if it dodged a water-sprite, 155
It plunged, and tack’d, and veer’d.
At its nearer approach, it
seemeth him to be a ship;
and at a dear ransom he
freeth his speech from the
bonds of thirst.
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I suck’d the blood, 160
And cried, A sail! a sail!
With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
A flash of joy; Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in, 165
As they were drinking all.
And horror follows. For
can it be a ship that
comes onward without
wind or tide?
See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal—
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel! 170
The western wave was all aflame,
The day was wellnigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad, bright Sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly 175
Betwixt us and the Sun.
It seemeth him but the
skeleton of a ship.
And straight the Sun was fleck’d with bars
(Heaven’s Mother send us grace!),
As if through a dungeon-grate he peer’d
With broad and burning face. 180
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Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres?
And its ribs are seen as
bars on the face of the
setting Sun. The SpectreWoman
and her Deathmate,
and no other on
board the skeleton ship.
Like vessel, like crew!
Are those her ribs through which the Sun 185
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman’s mate?
Her lips were red, her looks were free, 190
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.
Death and Life-in-Death
have diced for the ship’s
crew, and she (the latter)
winneth the ancient
Mariner.
The naked hulk alongside came, 195
And the twain were casting dice;
“The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!”
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
No twilight within the
courts of the Sun.
The Sun’s rim dips; the stars rush out: 200
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o’er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
We listen’d and look’d sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup, 205
My life-blood seem’d to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman’s face by his lamp gleam’d white;
From the sails the dew did drip—
At the rising of the Moon, Till clomb above the eastern bar 210
The hornéd Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.
One after another, One after one, by the star-dogg’d Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turn’d his face with a ghastly pang, 215
And cursed me with his eye.
His shipmates drop down
dead.
Four times fifty living men
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan),
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropp’d down one by one. 220
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But Life-in-Death begins
her work on the ancient
Mariner.
The souls did from their bodies fly—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it pass’d me by
Like the whizz of my crossbow!’
PART IV
The Wedding-Guest
feareth that a spirit is
talking to him;
‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner! 225
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
As is the ribb’d sea-sand.
I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand so brown.’— 230
But the ancient Mariner
assureth him of his bodily
life, and proceedeth to
relate his horrible
penance.
‘Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropt not down.
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on 235
My soul in agony.
He despiseth the
creatures of the calm.
The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I. 240
And envieth that they
should live, and so many
lie dead.
I look’d upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I look’d upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.
I look’d to heaven, and tried to pray; 245
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.
I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat; 250
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.
But the curse liveth for
him in the eye of the dead
men.
The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they: 255
The look with which they look’d on me
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Had never pass’d away.
An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that 260
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.
In his loneliness and
fixedness he yearneth
towards the journeying
Moon, and the stars that
still sojourn, yet still move
onward; and everywhere
the blue sky belongs to
them, and is their
appointed rest and their
native country and their
own natural homes, which
they enter unannounced,
as lords that are certainly
expected, and yet there is
a silent joy at their arrival.
The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide; 265
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—
Her beams bemock’d the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship’s huge shadow lay, 270
The charméd water burnt alway
A still and awful red.
By the light of the Moon
he beholdeth God’s
creatures of the great
calm.
Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watch’d the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white, 275
And when they rear’d, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watch’d their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, 280
They coil’d and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.
Their beauty and their
happiness.
O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gush’d from my heart, 285
He blesseth them in his
heart.
And I bless’d them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I bless’d them unaware.
The spell begins to break. The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free 290
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.
PART V
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‘O sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given! 295
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.
By grace of the holy
Mother, the ancient
Mariner is refreshed with
rain.
The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remain’d,
I dreamt that they were fill’d with dew; 300
And when I awoke, it rain’d.
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. 305
I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light—almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blesséd ghost.
He heareth sounds and
seeth strange sights and
commotions in the sky
and the element.
And soon I heard a roaring wind: 310
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.
The upper air burst into life;
And a hundred fire-flags sheen; 315
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; 320
And the rain pour’d 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, 325
The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.
The bodies of the ship’s
crew are inspired, and the
ship moves on;
The loud wind never reach’d the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon 330
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The dead men gave a groan.
They groan’d, they stirr’d, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise. 335
The helmsman steer’d, 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— 340
We were a ghastly crew.
The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pull’d at one rope,
But he said naught to me.’ 345
But not by the souls of the
men, nor by demons of
earth or middle air, but by
a blessed troop of angelic
spirits, sent down by the
invocation of the guardian
saint.
‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!’
Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest:
‘Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest: 350
For when it dawn’d—they dropp’d their arms,
And cluster’d round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies pass’d.
Around, around, flew each sweet sound, 355
Then darted to the Sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mix’d, now one by one.
Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the skylark sing; 360
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seem’d to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!
And now ’twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute; 365
And now it is an angel’s song,
That makes the Heavens be mute.
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It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook 370
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Till noon we quietly sail’d on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe: 375
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.
The lonesome Spirit from
the South Pole carries on
the ship as far as the
Line, in obedience to the
angelic troop, but still
requireth vengeance.
Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The Spirit slid: and it was he 380
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.
The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fix’d her to the ocean: 385
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, 390
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.
The Polar Spirit’s fellow
–
demons, the invisible
inhabitants of the
element, take part in his
wrong; and two of them
relate, one to the other,
that penance long and
heavy for the ancient
Mariner hath been
accorded to the Polar
Spirit, who returneth
southward.
How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare; 395
But ere my living life return’d,
I heard, and in my soul discern’d
Two voices in the air.
“Is it he?” quoth one, “is this the man?
By Him who died on cross, 400
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 405
Who shot him with his bow.”
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The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, “The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.” 410
PART VI
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?”
Second Voice: “Still as a slave before his lord, 415
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;
For she guides him smooth or grim. 420
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.”
The Mariner hath been
cast into a trance; for the
angelic power causeth the
vessel to drive northward
faster than human life
could endure.
First Voice: “But why drives on that ship so fast,
Without or wave or wind?”
Second Voice: “The air is cut away before, 425
And closes from behind.
Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the Mariner’s trance is abated.’ 430
The supernatural motion
is retarded; the Mariner
awakes, and his penance
begins anew.
I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
‘Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high;
The dead men stood together.
All stood together on the deck, 435
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fix’d on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.
The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never pass’d away: 440
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
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Nor turn them up to pray.
The curse is finally
expiated.
And now this spell was snapt: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And look’d far forth, yet little saw 445
Of what had else been seen—
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turn’d round, walks on,
And turns no more his head; 450
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea, 455
In ripple or in shade.
It raised my hair, it fann’d my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming. 460
Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sail’d softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
On me alone it blew.
And the ancient Mariner
beholdeth his native
country.
O dream of joy! is this indeed 465
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?
We drifted o’er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray— 470
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.
The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay, 475
And the shadow of the Moon.
The rock shone bright, the kirk no less
That stands above the rock:
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The moonlight steep’d in silentness
The steady weathercock. 480
The angelic spirits leave
the dead bodies,
And the bay was white with silent light
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.
And appear in their own
forms of light.
A little distance from the prow 485
Those crimson shadows were:
I turn’d my eyes upon the deck—
O Christ! what saw I there!
Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood! 490
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.
This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land, 495
Each one a lovely light;
This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart—
No voice; but O, the silence sank
Like music on my heart. 500
But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot’s cheer;
My head was turn’d perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.
The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy, 505
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! 510
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.
PART VII
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The Hermit of the Wood. ‘This Hermit good lives in that wood 515
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.
He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve— 520
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.
The skiff-boat near’d: I heard them talk,
“Why, this is strange, I trow! 525
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?”
Approacheth the ship with
wonder.
“Strange, by my faith!” the Hermit said—
“And they answer’d not our cheer!
The planks looked warp’d! and see those sails, 530
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were
Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along; 535
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—
(The Pilot made reply) 540
I am a-fear’d”—”Push on, push on!”
Said the Hermit cheerily.
The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirr’d;
The boat came close beneath the ship, 545
And straight a sound was heard.
The ship suddenly
sinketh.
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. 550
The ancient Mariner is
saved in the Pilot’s boat.
Stunn’d by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
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Like one that hath been seven days drown’d
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found 555
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. 560
I moved my lips—the Pilot shriek’d
And fell down in a fit;
The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And pray’d where he did sit.
I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy, 565
Who now doth crazy go,
Laugh’d loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
“Ha! ha!” quoth he, “full plain I see
The Devil knows how to row.” 570
And now, all in my own countree,
I stood on the firm land!
The Hermit stepp’d forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.
The ancient Mariner
earnestly entreateth the
Hermit to shrieve him; and
the penance of life falls on
him.
“O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!” 575
The Hermit cross’d his brow.
“Say quick,” quoth he, “I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?”
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench’d
With a woful agony, 580
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.
And ever and anon
throughout his future life
an agony constraineth
him to travel from land to
land;
Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told, 585
This heart within me burns.
I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me: 590
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Page 16 of 17
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: 595
And 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 600
Scarce seeméd there to be.
O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
‘Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!— 605
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay! 610
And to teach, by his own
example, love and
reverence to all things
that God made and
loveth.
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 615
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, 620
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 625
He rose the morrow morn.
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This resource is in the public domain.
