C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Albatross
By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (17721834)
W
As who, pursued with yell and blow,
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.
And it grew wondrous cold;
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.
Did send a dismal sheen;
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.
The ice was all around;
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!
Thorough the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!
It perched for vespers nine;
Whilst all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine.—
From the fiends that plague thee thus!
Why look’st thou so?—With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross!
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner’s hollo!
And it would work ’em woe:
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow!
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
’Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the Moon.
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
And all the boards did shrink:
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.
Of the spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathoms deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.