a

That he makes in the wood.

I took the oars: the pilot's boy, He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away

Who now doth crazy go, The Albatross's blood.

Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro.
PART VII.

“ Ha! ha!" quoth he, “ full plain I see,

The devil knows how to row."
This hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.

And now, all in my own countree,
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!

I stood on the firm land! He loves to talk with marineres

The hermit stepped forth from the boat, That come from a far countree.

And scarcely he could stand. He kneels at morn, and noon and eve

« O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" He hath a cushion plump:

The hermit cross'd his brow.
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.

Say quick," quoth he, “ I bid thee say

What manner of man art thou ?" The Skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk,

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd “Why this is strange, I trow!

With a woeful agony, Where are those lights so many and fair,

Which forced me to begin my tale; That signal made but now?".

And then it left me free. “Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said

Since then at an uncertain hour, “And they answered not our cheer!

That agony returns ; The planks look warped! and see those sails,

And till my ghastly tale is told,
How thin they are and sere!

This heart within me burns,
I never saw ought like to them,
Unless perchance it were

I pass, like night, from land to land;

I have strange power of speech; The skeletons of leaves that lag

That moment that his face I see,
My forest-brook along:

I know the man that must hear me:
When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,

To him my tale I teach.
That eats the she-wolf's young."

What loud uproar bursts from that door! Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look

The wedding-guests are there ;

But in the garden-bower the bride (The pilot made reply)

And bride-maids singing are; I am a-feared-Push on, push on!

And hark the little vesper bell,
Said the hermit cheerily.

Which biddeth me to prayer!
The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;

O wedding-guest! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide wide sea:
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

So lonely 'twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.
Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,

'Tis sweeter far to me, It reach'd the ship, it split the bay; The ship went down like lead.

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company !-
Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,

To walk together to the kirk,
Like one that hath been seven days drown'd,

And all together pray, My body lay afloat;

While each to his great Father bends, But swift as dreams, myself I found

Old men, and babes, and loving friends, Within the pilot's boat.

And youths and maidens gay! Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,

Farewell, farewell ! but this I tell The boat spun round and round;

To thee, thou wedding-guest! Aud all was still, save that the hill

He prayeth well, who loveth well Was telling of the sound.

Both man and bird and beast. I moved my lips--the pilot shrieked

He prayeth best, who loveth best And fell down in a fit;

All things both great and small; The holy hermit raised his eyes,

For the dear God who loveth us, And prayed where he did sit.

He made and loveth all,

.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,

Manes of th’ unnumber'd slain! Whose beard with age is hoar,

Ye that gasp'd on Warsaw's plain! Is gone; and now the wedding-guest

Ye that erst at Ismail's tower, Turned from the bridegroom's door.

When human ruin choak'd the streams,

Fell in conquest's glutted hour, He went like one that hath been stunned,

Mid women's shrieks and infant's screams! And is of sense forlorn :

Spirits of the uncoffin'd slain, A sadder and a wiser man,

Sudden blasts of triumph swelling, He rose the morrow morn.

Oft, at night, in misty train,

Rush around her narrow dwelling! ODE TO THE DEPARTING YEAR.

The exterminating fiend is filed

(Foul her life, and dark her doom) 1.

Mighty armies of the dead, Spirit who sweepest the wild harp of time!

Dance like death-fires round her tomb! It is most hard, with an untroubled ear

Then with prophetic song relate, Thy dark inwoven harmonies to hear!

Each some tyrant-murderer's fate! Yet, mine eye fixt on Heaven's unchanging clime,

IV.
Long had I listened, free from mortal fear,

With inward stillness, and submitted mind; Departing Year! 'twas on no earthly shore
When lo! its folds far waving on the wind,

My soul beheld thy vision! where alone,
I saw the train of the departing year!

Voiceless and stern, before the cloudy throne, Starting from my silent sadness,

Aye Memory sits: thy robe inscrib'd with gore, Then with no unholy madness,

With many an unimaginable groan Ere yet the enter'd cloud foreclos'd my sight,

Thou storied'st thy sad hours! silence ensued, Irais'd th’impetuous song, and solemnized his flight. Deep silence o'er th'ethereal multitude,

Whose locks with wreaths, whose wreaths with II.

glories shone. Hither, from the recent tomb,

Then, his eye wild ardours glancing, From the prison's direr gloom,

From the choired Gods advancing, From distemper's midnight anguish;

The spirit of the earth made reverence meet, And thence, where poverty doth waste and languish;

And stood up, beautiful, before the cloudy seat. Or where, his two bright torches blending,

V.
Love illumines manhood's maze;
Or where o'er cradled infants bending

Throughout the blissful throng,
Hope has fix'd her wishful gaze.

Hush'd were harp and song:
Hither, in perplexed dance,

Till wheeling round the throne the Lampads seven, Ye woes! ye young-eyed joys! advance!

(The mystic words of Heaven) By time's wild harp, and by the hand

Permissive signal make;

(spake! Whose indefatigable sweep

The fervent spirit bow'd, then spread his wings and Raises it's fateful strings from sleep,

“ Thou in stormy blackness throning I bid you haste, a mixt tumultuous band !

Love and uncreated light,
From every private bower,

By the earth's unsolaced groaning,
And each domestic hearth,

Seize thy terrors, arm of might!
Haste for one solemn hour;

By peace, with proffer'd insult scar’d, And with a loud and yet a louder voice,

Masked hate and envying scorn!
O'er nature struggling in portentous birth,

By years of havoc yet unborn!
Weep and rejoice!

And Hunger's bosom to the frost-winds bared! Still echoes the dread Name, that o'er the earth

But chief by Afric's wrongs, Let slip the storm, and woke the brood of hell.

Strange, horrible, and foul! And now advance in saintly jubilee

By what deep guilt belongs
Justice and Truth! they too have heard thy spell, To the deaf Synod, ó full of gifts and lies!
They too obey thy name, Divinest Liberty! By Wealth's insensate laugh! by Torture's howl!

Avenger, rise!
III.

For ever shall the thankless Island scowl,
I mark'd Ambition in his war-array!

Her quiver full, and with unbroken bow? I heard the mailed Monarch's troublous cry

Speak ! from thy storm-black Heaven Ospeak aloud! “Ah! wherefore does the Northern Conqueress stay?

And on the darkling foe Groans not her chariot on its onward way?"

Open thine eye of fire from some uncertain cloud ! Fly, mailed Monarch, fly!

O dart the flash! O rise and deal the blow! Stunned by Death's twice mortal mace,

The past to thee, to thee the future cries ! No more on Murder's lurid face

Hark! how wide Nature joins her groans below! Th’insatia te hag shall glote with drunken eye!

Rise, God of Nature ! rise."

VI.

Have wailed my country with a loud lament. The voice had ceased, the vision fled;

Now I recenter my immortal mind Yet still I gasp'd and reel'd with dread.

In the deep sabbath of meek self-content; And ever, when the dream of night

Cleans'd from the vaporous passions that bedim Renews the phantom to my sight,

God's image, sister of the Seraphim. Cold sweat-drops gather on my limbs;

My ears throb hot; my eye-balls start; My brain with horrid tumult swims;

FEARS IN SOLITUDE. Wild is the tempest of my heart;

WRITTEN IN 1798, DURING THE ALARM OF AN And my thick and struggling breath

INVASION. Imitates the toil of death!

A green and silent spot, amid the hills, No stranger agony confounds

A small and silent dell! O'er stiller place The soldier on the war-field spread,

No singing sky-lark ever pois’d himself. When all foredone with toil and wounds.

The hills are heathy, save that swelling slope, Death-like he dozes among heaps of dead! Which hath a gay and gorgeous covering on, (The strife is o'er, the day-light fled,

All golden with the never-bloomless furze, And the night-wind clamours hoarse!

Which now blooms most profusely; but the dell, See! the starting wretch's head

Bath'd by the mist, is fresh and delicate
Lies pillow'd on a brother's corse !)

As vernal corn-field, or the unripe flax,
VII.

When, through its half-transparent stalks, at eve, Not yet enslav'd, not wholly vile,

The level sunshine glimmers with green light. O Albion! O my mother Isle!

Oh! 'tis a quiet spirit-healing nook! Thy vallies, fair as Eden's bowers,

Which all, methinks, would love; but chiefly he, Glitter green with sunny showers;

The humble man, who, in his youthful years, Thy grassy uplands' gentle swells

Knew just so much of folly, as had made Echo to the bleat of flocks;

His early manhood more securely wise! (Those grassy hills, those glittring dells

Here he might lie on fern or wither'd heath, Proudly ramparted with rocks)

While from the singing-lark (that sings unseen And Ocean mid his uproar wild

The minstrelsy that solitude loves best,) Speaks safety to his Island-child !

And from the sun, and from the breezy air, Hence, for many a fearless age,

Sweet influences trembled o'er his frame; Has social Quiet lov'd thy shore;

And he, with many feelings, many thoughts, Nor ever proud invader's rage

Made up a meditative joy, and found Or sack'd thy towers, or stain'd thy fields with gore.

Religious meanings in the forms of nature !

And so his senses gradually wrapt
VIII.

In a half sleep, he dreams of better worlds,
Abandon'd of Heaven! mad avarice thy guide, And dreaming hears thee still, O singing-lark,
At cowardly distance, yet kindling with pride- That singest like an angel in the clouds!
Mid thy herds and thy corn-fields secure thou hast
stood,

My God! it is a melancholy thing

a And join'd the wild yelling of Famine and Blood!

For such a man, who would full fain preserve The nations curse thee, and with eager wond'ring

His soul in calmness, yet perforce must feel Shall hear Destruction, like a vulture, scream!

For all his human brethren-O my God! Strange-eyed Destruction! who with many a

It is indeed a melancholy thing, dream

And weighs upon the heart, that he must think Of central fires thro' nether seas upthund'ring

What uproar and what strife may now be stirring Soothes her fierce solitude; yet as she lies

This

way or that way o'er these silent hillsBy livid fount, or red volcanic stream,

Invasion, and the thunder and the shout, If ever to her lidless dragon-eyes,

And all the crash of onset; fear and rage, O Albion ! thy predestin'd ruins rise,

And undetermin'd conflict-even now, The fiend-hag on her perilous couch doth leap,

Even now, perchance, and in his native isle: Muttering distemper'd triumph in her charmed sleep.

Carnage and groans beneath this blessed sun!

We have offended, Oh! my countrymen!
IX.

We have offended very grievously,
Away, my soul, away!

And been most tyrannous. From east to west
In vain, in vain the birds of warning sing- A groan of accusation pierces Heaven !
And hark! I hear the famish'd brood of prey The wretched plead against us; multitudes
Flap their lank pennons on the groaning wind! Countless and vehement, the sons of God,
Away, my soul, away!

Our brethren! like a cloud that travels on, I unpartaking of the evil thing,

Steam'd up from Cairo's swamps of pestilence, With daily prayer and daily toil

Ev'n so, my countrymen! have we gone forth Soliciting for food my scanty soil,

And borne to distant tribes slavery and pangs,

And, deadlier far, our vices, whose deep taint Becomes a fluent phraseman, absolute
With slow perdition murders the whole man,

And technical in victories and deceit,
His body and his soul! Meanwhile, at home, And all our dainty terms for fratricide ;
All individual dignity and power

Terms which we trundle smoothly o’er our tongues Engulph'd in courts, comınittees, institutions, Like mere abstractions, empty sounds to which Associations and societies,

We join no feeling and attach no form! A vain, speech-mouthing, speech-reporting guild, As if the soldier died without a wound; One benefit-club for mutual flattery,

As if the fibres of this godlike frame We have drunk up, denure as at a grace,

Were gor’d without a pang ; as if the wretch, Pollutions from the brimming cup of wealth ; Who fell in battle, doing bloody deeds, Contemptuous of all honorable rule,

Pass'd off to Heaven, translated and not kill'd;Yet bartering freedom and the poor man's life As though he had no wife to pine for him, For gold, as at a market! The sweet words

No God to judge him! therefore, evil'days Of christian promise, words that even yet

Are coming on us, O my countrymen! Might stem destruction, were they wisely preach'd, And what if all-avenging Providence, Are mutter'd o'er by men, whose tones proclaim Strong and retributive, should make us know How flat and wearisome they feel their trade: The meaning of our words, force us to feel Rank scoffers some, but most too indolent

The desolation and the agony To deem them falsehoods or to know their truth.

Of our fierce doings? Oh ! blasphemous! the book of life is made

Spare us yet awhile, A superstitious instrument, on which We gabble o'er the oaths we mean to break;

Father and God! Oh! spare us yet awhile! For all must swear-all and in every place,

Oh! let not English women drag their flight

Fainting beneath the burden of their babes, College and wharf, council and justice-court;

Of the sweet infants, that but yesterday All, all must swear, the briber and the bribed,

Laugh'd at the breast! Sons, brothers, husbands, all Merchant and lawyer, senator and priest,

Who ever gaz'd with fondness on the forms The rich, the poor, the old man and the young;

Which grew up with you round the same fire-side, All, all make up one scheme of perjury,

And all who ever heard the sabbath-bells That faith doth reel; the very name of God

Without the infidel's scorn, make yourselves pure ! Sounds like a juggler's charm; and, bold with joy, Stand forth! be men ! repel an impious foe, Forth from his dark and lonely hiding-place,

Impious and false, a light yet cruel race, (Portentous sight!) the owlet, Atheism,

Who laugh away all virtue, mingling mirth Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon,

With deeds of murder; and still promising Drops his blue-fringed lids, and holds them close,

Freedom, themselves too sensual to be free, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven,

Poison life's amities, and cheat the heart Cries out, “ Where is it?"

Of faith and quiet hope, and all that soothes

And all that lifts the spirit! Stand we forth;
Thankless too for peace;

Render them back upon the insulted ocean, (Peace long preserv'd by fleets and perilous seas)

And let them toss as idly on it's waves Secure from actual warfare, we have lov'd

As the vile sea-weed, which some mountain-blast To swell the war-whoop, passionate for war!

Swept from our shores! and oh! may we return Alas! for ages ignorant of all

Not with a drunken triumph, but with fear, It's ghastlier workings, (famine or blue plague,

Repenting of the wrongs with which we stung Battle, or siege, or flight through wintry snows,)

So fierce a foe to frenzy!
We, this whole people, have been clamorous
For war and bloodshed; animating sports, .

I have told,
The which we pay for as a thing to talk of,

O Britons! O my brethren! I have told Spectators and not combatants! No guess

Most bitter truth, but without bitterness. Anticipative of a wrong unfelt,

Nor deem my zeal or factious or mis-tim'd; No speculation on contingency,

For never can true courage dwell with them, However dim and vague, too vague and dim

Who, playing tricks with conscience, dare not look To yield a justifying cause; and forth,

At their own vices. We have been too long (Stuffed out with big preamble, holy names,

Dupes of a deep delusion! Some, belike, And adjurations of the God in Heaven,)

Groaning with restless enmity, expect We send our mandates for the certain death All change from change of constituted power; Of thousands and ten thousands ! Boys and girls, As if a government had been a robe, And women, that would groan to see a child On which our vice and wretchedness were tagg'd Pull off an insect's leg, all read of war,

Like fancy-points and fringes, with the robe
The best amusement for our morning-meal !

Pullid off at pleasure. Fondly these attach
The poor wretch, who has learnt his only prayers A radical causation to a few
From curses, who knows scarcely words enough Poor drudges of chastising Providence,
To ask a blessing froin his Heavenly Father, Who borrow all their hues and qualities

A WAR ECLOGUE,

From our own folly and rank wickedness,

And grateful, that by Nature's quietness
Which gave them birth and nurse them. Others, And solitary musings, all my heart
Dote with a mad idolatry; and all (meanwhile, Is soften'd, and made worthy to indulge
Who will not fall before their images,

Love, and the thoughts that yearn for human kind.
And yield them worship, they are enemies,
Even of their country!

FIRE, FAMINE, AND SLAUGHTER. Such have I been deem'd But, О dear Britain! O my Mother Isle! Needs must thou prove a name most dear and holy The Scene, a desolated Tract in La Vendee. FAXINE To me, a son, a brother, and a friend,

is discovered lying on the ground; to her enter A husband, and a father! who revere

FIRE and SLAUGHTER.
All bonds of natural love, and find them all

FAMINE.
Within the limits of thy rocky shores.
O native Britain! O my Mother Isle ! (holy

Sisters! sisters! who sent you here?
How shouldst thou prove aught else but dear and

SLAUGHTER (to Fire.)
To me, who from thy lakes and mountain-hills,
Thy clouds, thy quiet dales, thy rocks and as,

I will whisper it in her ear.
Have drunk in all my intellectual life,

FIRE.
All sweet sensations, all ennobling thoughts,
All adoration of the God in Nature,

No! no! no!
All lovely and all honourable things,

Spirits hear what spirits tell: Whatever makes this mortal spirit feel

"Twill make an holiday in Hell.

No! no! no!
The joy and greatness of its future being?
There lives nor form nor feeling in my soul

Myself, I nam'd him once below,
Unborrow'd from my country. O divine

And all the souls, that damned be,
And beauteous island! thou hast been my sole Leapt up at once in anarchy,
And most magnificent temple, in the which Clapp'd their hands and danced for glee.
I walk with awe, and sing my stately songs,

They no longer beeded me;
Loving the God that made me!

But laugh'd to hear Hell's burning rafters

Unwillingly re-echo laughters!
May my fears,

No! no! no!
My filial fears, be vain! and may the vaunts

Spirits hear what spirits tell: And menace of the vengeful enemy

'Twill make an holiday in Hell ! Pass like the gust, that roar'd and died away In the distant tree: which heard, and only heard

FAMINE. In this low dell, bow'd not the delicate grass.

Whisper it, sister! so and so!
But now the gentle dew-fall sends abroad

In a dark hint, soft and slow.
The fruit-like perfume of the golden furze:
The light has left the summit of the hill,

SLAUGHTER.
Though still a sunny gleam lies beautiful

Letters four do form his name-
Aslant the ivied beacon. Now farewell,

And who sent you?
Farewell, awhile, O soft and silent spot!
On the green sheep-track, up the heathy bill,

Both.
Homeward I wind my way; and, lo! recallid

The same! the same!
From bodings that have well nigh wearied me,
I find myself upon the brow, and pause

SLAUGHTER.
Startled! And after lonely sojourning

He came by stealth, and unlock'd my den, In such a quiet and surrounded nook,

And I have drunk the blood since then
This burst of prospect, here the shadowy Main,

Of thrice three hundred thousand men.
Dim tinted, there the mighty majesty
Of that huge amphitheatre of rich

Both.
And elmy fields, seems like society-

Who bade you do't?
Conversing with the mind, and giving it
A livelier impulse and a dance of thought!

SLAUGHTER.
And now, beloved Stowey! I behold

The same! the same!
Thychurch-tower,and, methinks, the four huge elms Letters four do form his name.
Clustering, which mark the mansion of my friend;

He let me loose, and cried, Halloo!
And close behind them, hidden from my view, To him alone the praise is due.
Is my own lowly cottage, where my babe
And my babe's mother dwell in peace! With light

FAMINE.
And quicken’d footsteps thitherward I tend,

Thanks, sister, thanks! the men have bled, Remembering thee, O green and silent dell!

Their wives and their children faint for bread.