Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/678

 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

��The Wedding- Guest is spell- bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.

��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 cheer'd, the harbour clear'd,

Merrily did we drop

Below the kirk, below the hill,

Below the lighthouse top.

��The Mariner tells how the ihip sailed

southward with Out of the sea came he'

a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the Line

��The Sun came up upon the left,

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

��Higher and higher every day, Till over the mast at noon

��The Wedding- Guest heareth the bridal music j but the Mariner con- tmueth his tale.

��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.

�� �