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 O doing?"
SED VOICE.
"Still as a Slave before his Lord,
"The O 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 rim.
"See, brother, see! how graciously
"She looketh down on him."
FIRST VOICE.
"But why drives on that ship so fast
"Withouten wave or wind?"
SED VOICE.
"The air is cut away before,
"And closes from behind.
"Fly, brother, ?y! more high, more high,
"Or we shall be belated:
"For slow and slow that ship will go,
"When the Marirance is abated."
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,
For a el-dungeon ?tter:
All ?xd oheir stony eyes
That in the moon did glitter.
The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passd away:
I could not draw my een from theirs
urn them up to pray.
And in its time the spell was snapt,
And I could move my een:
I lookd far-forth, but little saw
Of what might else be seen.
Like ohat on a lonely road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having ournd round, walks on
And turns no more his head:
Because he knows, a frightful ?end
Doth close behind him tread.
But soon there breathd a wind on me,
Ne souion made:
Its path was not upon the sea
In ripple or in shade.
It raisd my hair, it fannd my cheek,
Like a meadow-gale of spring--
It mirangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a weling.
Swiftly, swiftly ?ew the ship,
Yet she saild softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
On me alo blew.
O dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
Is this the Hill? Is this the Kirk?
Is this mine own tree?
We drifted oer the Harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray--
"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 moon light lay,
And the shadow of the moon.
The moonlight bay was white all oer,
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
Like as of torches came.
A little distance from the prow
Those dark-red shadows were;
But soon I saw that my own ?esh
Was red as in a glare.
I turnd my head in fear and dread,
And by the holy rood,
The bodies had advancd, and now
Before the mast they stood.
They lifted up their stiff right arms,
They held them strait and tight;
And each right-arm burnt like a torch,
A torch thats borne upright.
Their stony eye-balls glitterd on
In the red and smoky light.
I prayd and turnd my head away
Forth looking as before.
There was no breeze upon the bay,
No wave against the shore.
The rock shone bright, the kirk no less
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steepd in silentness
The steady weathercock.
And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same