Tell me what thy lordly name is on the To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned inNight's Plutonian shore :" Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore." to my bosom's core; This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining Much I marveled this ungainly fowl to hear On the cushion's velvet lining that the lampdiscourse so plainly, light gloated o'er, Though its answer little meaning, little rele- But whose velvet, violet lining with the lamp Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken, "Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast, and followed faster till his songs one burden bore; Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore Of 'Never, Nevermore"." But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling, Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door; Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore, What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore Meant in croaking "Nevermore." This I sat engaged in guessing, but no sylla- Leave no black plume as a token of that lie ble expressing thy soul has spoken! HERE are three readers of Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner." The first is gross enough to fancy all the imagery of the mariner's visions delivered by the poet, for actual facts of experience; which being impossible, the whole pulverizes, for that reader, into a baseless fairy tale. The second reader is wiser than that; he knows that the imagery is not baseless; it is the imagery of febrile delirium, really seen, but not seen as an external reality. The mariner had caught the pestilential fever, which had carried off all his mates; he only had survived; the delirium had vanished; but the visions that had haunted the delirium remained. "Yes," says the third reader, "they remained; naturally they did, being scorched by fever into his brain; but how did they happen to remain on his belief as gospel truths? The delirium had vanished, except as visionary memorials of a sorrow that was cancelled. Why was it that craziness settled upon this mariner's brain, driving him, as if he were a Cain or another Wandering Jew, to "pass like night from land to land," and at uncertain intervals, wrenching him until he made rehearsal of his errors, even at the hard price of "holding children from their play and old men from the chimney-corner ?" That craziness, as the third reader deciphers, rose out of a deeper soil than any bodily affliction. It had its root in penitential sorrow. Oh, bitter is the sorrow to a conscientious heart when too late it discovers the depth of a love that has been trampled under foot! The mariner had slain the creature that on all the earth loved him best. In the darkness of his cruel superstition he had done it, to save his human brothers from a fancied inconvenience; and yet, by that very act of cruelty, he had himself called destruction on their heads. The Nemesis that followed punished him through them; him that wronged, through those that wrongfully he sought to benefit. The spirit who watches over the sanctities of love is a strong angel, is a jealous angel; and this angel it was "That loved the bird, that loved the man That shot him with his bow." He it was that followed the cruel archer into silent and slumbering seas: "Nine fathoms deep he followed him, This jealous angel it was that pursued the man into noonday darkness, and the visions of dying oceans, into delirium, and finally, when recovered from disease, into an unsettled mind. THOMAS DE QUINCEY. THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER. PART I. T is an Ancient Mariner, And he stoppeth one of three: "By thy long gray beard and glittering 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: He holds him with his skinny hand, He holds him with his glittering eye- The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone, And thus spake on that ancient man, "The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, 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: And he shone bright, and in the right "And now the storm-blast came, and he Was tyrannous and strong: He struck with his o'ertaking wings, "With sloping masts and dripping prow,- "And there came both mist and snow, And ice, mast high, came floating by, "And through the drifts the snowy clifts Did send a dismal sheen: Nor shapes of men nor beasts we kenThe ice was all between. "The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around: It cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound! "At length did cross an Albatross : Thorough 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. The ice did split with a thunder-fit; The helmsman steered us through! "And a good south wind sprung up behind; The Albatross did follow, And every day for food or play, Came to the mariners' hollo! "In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud, It perched for vespers nine; Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine." "God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends that plague thee thus! Why look'st thou so?”—“ With my crossbow I shot the Albatross. PART II. "The sun now rose upon the right: Out of the sea came he, Still hid in mist, and on the left "And the good south-wind still blew behind, "And I had done an hellish thing, "Nor dim, nor red, like God's own head, Then all averr'd I had killed the bird The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue and white. "And some in dreams assured were Of the spirit that plagued us so ; Nine fathom deep he had followed us From the land of mist and snow. "And every tongue, through utter drought, Was withered at the root; We could not speak, no more than if “Ah, well-a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung. PART III. "There passed a weary time. Each throat Was parched, and glazed each eye; A weary time; a weary time; "At first it seemed a little speck, "A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist; And still it neared and neared; As if it dodged a water sprite, It plunged, and tacked, and veered. "With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, We could nor laugh nor wail; Through utter drought all dumb we stood, And cried, 'A sail! a sail!' "With throats unslaked, with black lips baked, Agape they heard me call; Gramercy! they for joy did grin, And all at once their breath drew in, "See, see,' I cried, 'she tacks no more! Hither to work us weal! Without a breeze, without a tide, She steadies with upright keel.' "The western wave was all aflame, The day was well-nigh done; |