No More Learning

A Spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this
planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew,
Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be
consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element
without one or more.

The shipmates, in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on
the ancient Mariner:

In sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.


PART III


The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.

At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom
he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.

A flash of joy;

And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or
tide?

It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.

And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun.

The Spectre-Woman and her Death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton-
ship.

Like vessel, like crew!

Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the
latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.

No twilight within the courts of the Sun.

At the rising of the Moon,

One after another,

His shipmates drop down dead.

But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.
PART IV


The Wedding-Guest feareth that a Spirit is talking to him;

But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to
relate his horrible penance.

He despiseth the creatures of the calm.

And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.

But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.

In his loneliness 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.

By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.

Their beauty and their happiness.

He blesseth them in his heart.

The spell begins to break.


PART V


By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.

He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and
the element.

The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;

But not by the souls of the men, nor by daemons of earth or middle air, but
by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the
guardian saint.

The lonesome Spirit from the south-pole carries on the ship as far as the
Line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.

The Polar Spirit's fellow-daemons, the invisible inhabitants of the element,
take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that
penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the
Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.


PART VI


The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the
vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure.

The supernatural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes, and his penance
begins anew.