Chapter 4

‘I fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand.

‘I fear thee and thy glittering eye, And thy skinny hand so brown.’— Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest! This body dropt not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie; And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea, And drew mine eyes away: I looked upon the rotting deck, And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven and tried to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came and made My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close, And the balls like pulses beat; For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky Lay like a load on my weary eye, And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs, Nor rot nor reek did they: The look with which they looked on me Had never passed away.

An orphan’s curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man’s eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die.

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

Her beams bemocked 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, I watched the water-snakes: They moved in tracks of shining white, And when they reared, the elfish light Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship I watched their rich attire: Blue, glossy green, and velvet black, They coiled 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 gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware: Sure my kind Saint took pity on me, And I blessed them unaware.

The selfsame moment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea.