Of what they have been? All thy And the gaunt woods, in ragged,

Thy oft-re- Wrap their old limbs with sombre

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE.

[Passages from The Rime of the Ancient | Sure I had drunken in my dreams,

Mariner.]

THE SHIP BECALMED.

THE fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea,

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

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,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

THE ANCIENT MARINER REFRESHED
BY SLEEP AND RAIN.

O 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,
That had so long remained,

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 blessed ghost.

THE VOICES OF THE ANGELS. 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.

PENANCE OF THE ANCIENT MARINER,
AND HIS REVERENT TEACHING.
FORTHWITH this frame of mine was
wrenched
With a woful agony,

I dreamt that they were filled with Which forced me to begin my tale:

dew;

And when I awoke it rained.

And then it left me free.

Since then at an uncertain hour,

My lips were wet, my throat was That agony returns:

cold,

My garments all were dank.

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;
That 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 bridemaids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

[From Christabel.]

BROKEN FRIENDSHIPS.

ALAS! they had been friends in youth;

But whispering tongues can poison truth;

And constancy lives in realms above;
And life is thorny; and youth is
vain;

And to be wroth with one we love,
Doth work like madness in the brain.
And thus it chanced, as I divine,
With Roland and Sir Leoline.

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath Each spake words of high disdain

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 Father 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
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been
stunned,

And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.

And insult to his heart's best brother:
They parted-ne'er to meet again!
But never either found another

To free the hollow heart from pain

ing

They stood aloof, the scars remaining. Like cliffs which had been rent asunder

A dreary sea now flows between; -
But neither heat, nor frost, nor thun-
der,

Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath
been.

[From The Three Graves.]
BELL AND BROOK.

'Tis sweet to hear a brook, 'tis sweet
To hear the Sabbath-bell,

'Tis sweet to hear them both at once, Deep in a woody dell.

[From Dejection.]

A GRIEF without a pang, void, dark, and drear,

A stifled, drowsy, unimpassioned grief,

Which finds no natural outlet, no
relief,

In word, or sigh, or tear-
O lady! in this wan and heartless

mood,