No More Learning

FIRST VOICE.
"But tell me, tell me! speak again,
"Thy soft response renewing--
"What makes that ship drive on so fast?
"What is the Ocean doing? "

SECOND VOICE.
"Still as a Slave before his Lord,
"The Ocean hath no blast:
"His great bright eye most silently
"Up to the moon is cast--

"If he may know which way to go,
"For she guides him smooth or grim.
"See, brother, see! how graciously
"She looketh down on him. "

FIRST VOICE.
"But why drives on that ship so fast
"Withouten wave or wind? "
SECOND VOICE.
"The air is cut away before,
"And closes from behind.

"Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high,
"Or we shall be belated:
"For slow and slow that ship will go,
"When the Marinere's trance is abated. "

I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together.
All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fix'd on me their stony eyes
That in the moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never pass'd away:
I could not draw my een from theirs
Ne turn them up to pray.

And in its time the spell was snapt,
And I could move my een:
I look'd far-forth, but little saw
Of what might else be seen.

Like one, that on a lonely road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turn'd round, walks on
And turns no more his head:
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breath'd a wind on me,
Ne sound ne motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea
In ripple or in shade.

It rais'd my hair, it fann'd my cheek,
Like a meadow-gale of spring--
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sail'd softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze--
On me alone it blew.

O dream of joy! is this indeed
The light-house top I see?
Is this the Hill? Is this the Kirk?
Is this mine own countree?

We drifted o'er the Harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray--
"O let me be awake, my God!
"Or let me sleep alway! "

The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moon light lay,
And the shadow of the moon.