Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/683

 And straight the Sun was fleck'd with bars (Heaven's Mother send us grace'), As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd With broad and burning face.

��SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist! And still it near'd and near'd. As if it dodged a water-sprite, It plunged, and tack'd and veer'd.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,

We could nor laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood'

I bit my arm, I suck'd the blood,

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, As they were drinking all.

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 wellnigh done!

Almost upon the western wave

Rested the broad, bright Sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly

Betwixt us and the Sun.

��seemeth him to be a shipi and at a deal ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.

��A flash of jov ,

��And horror follows For can it be a hip that comts onward without wind or tide*

��It seemeth him but the skele- ton of a shiD

�� �