Besides his wife, he left two sons and a daughter, all then in the stage of middle-life. The whole of these also had literary talent, the eldest especially so; but it is the fate of the lesser genius in a family to be always thrust out of sight by the memory of the greater, and that of the author of the "Ancient Marinere" was such that when he died the world may be said to have lost all that could be lost of the greatest poet, if we except Shelley, that England had produced since the days of Milton, and in the domain of pure poetry such a one as has not appeared in the world since.

T is an ancient Mariner,

IT and he stoppeth one of three.

An ancient Mariner meeteth

"By thy long grey beard and glittering three gallants

eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin ;

The guests are met, the feast is set:

May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand, "There was a ship," quoth he.

"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!" Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

bidden to a wedding feast, and detaineth one.

He holds him with his glittering eye-
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;

And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the light-house top.

The sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!

[cleared,

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man
The bright-eyed Mariner.

"And now the storm-blast came, and he The ship drawn

Was tyrannous and strong:

He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen :

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

[howled,

It cracked and growled, and roared and
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross,
Through the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.

by a storm
toward the
south pole.

The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be seen.

Till a great seabird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.