Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/656

 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 roar'd 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: It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd, 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 hail'd 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 steer'd 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!