The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk, Where are those lights so many and fair, "Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said- The planks looked warped! How thin they are and sere! and see those sails, I never saw aught like to them, Brown skeletons of leaves that lag When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow, And the owlet whoops to the wolf below, "Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look (The Pilot made reply) I am a-feared"-"Push on, push on!" The boat came closer to the ship, The boat came close beneath the ship, Under the water it rumbled on, Still louder and more dread: It reached the ship, it split the bay; Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound, Like one that hath been seven days drowned My body lay afloat; But swift as dreams, myself I found Within the Pilot's boat. Upon the whirl, where sank the ship, I moved my lips-the Pilot shrieked The holy Hermit raised his eyes, I took the oars: the Pilot's boy, Approacheth the ship with wonder. The ship suddenly sinketh. The ancient saved in the The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him. And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land. Laughed loud and long, and all the while "Ha! ha!" quoth he, "full plain I see, And now, all in my own countree, I stood on the firm land! The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, "O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!" "Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say- Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched Which forced me to begin my tale; Since then, at an uncertain hour, And till my ghastly tale is told, I pass, like night, from land to land; I know the man that must hear me : What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding-guests are there: But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are: And hark the little vesper bell, O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been So lonely 'twas, that God himself CHRISTABEL. PREFACE.* THE first part of the following poem was written in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-seven, at Stowey in the county of Somerset. The second part, after my return from Germany, in the year one thousand eight hundred, at Keswick, Cumberland. Since the latter date, my poetic powers have been, till very lately, in a state of suspended animation. tion of the tale, I had the whole present to my mind, with the wholeness, no less But as, in my very first concepthan with the loveliness of a vision; I trust that I shall yet be able to embody in verse the three parts yet to come. It is probable, that if the poem had been finished at either of the former periods, or if even the first and second part had been published in the year 1800, the impression of its originality would have been much greater than I dare at present expect. But for this, I have only my own indolence to blame. The dates are mentioned for the exclusive purpose of precluding charges of plagiarism or servile imitation from myself. For there is among us a set of critics, who seem to hold, that every possible thought and image is traditional; who have no notion that there are such things as fountains in the world, small as well as great; and who would therefore charitably derive every rill they behold flowing, from a perforation made in some other man's tank. I am confident, however, that as far as the present poem is concerned, the celebrated poets whose writings I might be suspected of having imitated, either in particular passages, or in the tone and the spirit of the whole, would be among the first to vindicate me from the charge, and who, on any striking coincidence, would permit me to address them in this doggrel version of two monkish Latin hexameters : 'Tis mine and it is likewise your's But an if this will not do; Let it be mine, good friend! for I I have only to add, that the metre of the Christabel is not, properly speaking, irregular, though it may seem so from its being founded on a new principle: namely, that of counting in each line the accents, not the syllables. Though the latter may vary from seven to twelve, yet in each line the accents will be found to be only four. Nevertheless this occasional variation in number of syllables is not introduced wantonly, or for the mere ends of convenience, but in correspondence with some transition in the nature of the imagery or passion. PART THE FIRST. 'Tis the middle of night by the castle clock, And hark, again! the crowing cock, How drowsily it crew. *To the edition of 1816. Sir Leoline, the Baron rich, Hath a toothless mastiff, which From her kennel beneath the rock Maketh answer to the clock, Four for the quarters, and twelve for the hour; Is the night chilly and dark? The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, And she in the midnight wood will pray She stole along, she nothing spoke, The lady sprang up suddenly, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree. The night is chill; the forest bare; Hanging so light, and hanging so high, On the topmost twig that looks up at the sky. |