Part IV
‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner!I fear thy skinny hand!And thou art long, and lank, and brown,As is the ribbed sea-sand.
‘I fear thee and thy glittering eye,And thy skinny hand so brown.’—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 onMy soul in agony.
The many men, so beautiful!And they all dead did lie;And a thousand thousand slimy thingsLived on; and so did I.
I looked upon the rotting sea,And drew mine eyes away:I looked upon the rotting deck,And there the dead men lay.
I looked to heaven and tried to pray;But or ever a prayer had gusht,A wicked whisper came and madeMy heart as dry as dust.
I closed my lids, and kept them close,And the balls like pulses beat;For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the skyLay like a load on my weary eye,And the dead were at my feet.
The cold sweat melted from their limbs,Nor rot nor reek did they:The look with which they looked on meHad never passed away.
An orphan’s curse would drag to hellA spirit from on high;But oh! more horrible than thatIs the curse in a dead man’s eye!Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,And yet I could not die.
The moving Moon went up the sky,And nowhere did abide:Softly she was going up,And a star or two beside—
Her beams bemocked the sultry main,Like April hoar-frost spread;But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,The charmed water burnt alwayA still and awful red.
Beyond the shadow of the ship,I watched the water-snakes:They moved in tracks of shining white,And when they reared, the elfish lightFell off in hoary flakes.
Within the shadow of the shipI watched their rich attire:Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,They coiled and swam: and every trackWas a flash of golden fire.
O happy living things! no tongueTheir beauty might declare;A spring of love gushed from my heart,And I blessed them unaware:Sure my kind Saint took pity on me,And I blessed them unaware.
The selfsame moment I could pray;And from my neck so freeThe Albatross fell off, and sankLike lead into the sea.