SELECTIONS IN ENGLISH POETRY

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow.
The spirit slid: and it was he
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 fixed her to the ocean :
But in a minute she Jgan 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,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

"Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man ?
By him who died on cross,
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."

101

The lonesome
Spirit from the

South Pole
carries on the
ship as far as

the Line, in

obedience to the

angelic troop,

but still require-

th vengeance.

380

385

390

The Polar
Spirit's fellow-
demons, the in-
visible inhabi-
tants of the ele-
ment » take part
in his wrong;
and two of them
relate, one to the
other, that pe-
nance long and
heavy for the an-
cient Mariner
hath been ac-
corded to the Po-
lar Spirit, who
retwneth south-
ward*

395

400

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