Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/687

 SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

��The moving Moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide; Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside

��In hit loneli- ness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still

sojourn, yet still move onward, and everywhere .the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival

��Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, Like April hoar-frost spread; But where the ship's huge shadow lay, The charmed water burnt alway A still and awful red.

��Beyond the shadow of the ship,

1 watch J d the water-snakes'

They moved in tracks of shining white,

And when they rear'd, the elfish light

Fell off in hoary flakes.

��By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's crea- tures of the great calm.

��Within the shadow of the ship

I watch'd their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,

They coil'd and swam; and every track

Was a flash of golden fire.

��O happy living things' no tongue

Their beauty might declare.

A spring of love gush'd from my heart,

And I bless'd them unaware*

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

And I bless'd them unaware.

��Their beauty and their happiness

��He blesseth them in his heart.

�� �