The Complete Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Poems, Plays, Essays, Lectures, Autobiography & Personal Letters (Illustrated). Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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СКАЧАТЬ ”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 lighthouse 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.

      The moonlight bay was white all o’er,

       Till rising from the same,

       Full many shapes, that shadows were,

       Like as of torches came.

      A little distance from the prow

       Those dark-red shadows were;

       But soon I saw that my own flesh

       Was red as in a glare.

      I turn’d my head in fear and dread,

       And by the holy rood,

       The bodies had advanc’d, and now

       Before the mast they stood.

      They lifted up their stiff right arms,

       They held them strait and tight;

       And each right-arm burnt like a torch,

       A torch that’s borne upright.

       Their stony eyeballs glitter’d on

       In the red and smoky light.

      I pray’d and turn’d my head away

       Forth looking as before.

       There was no breeze upon the bay,

       No wave against the shore.

      The rock shone bright, the kirk no less

       That stands above the rock:

       The moonlight steep’d in silentness

       The steady weathercock.

      And the bay was white with silent light,

       Till rising from the same

       Full many shapes, that shadows were,

       In crimson colours came.

      A little distance from the prow

       Those crimson shadows were:

       I turn’d my eyes upon the deck —

       O Christ! what saw I there?

      Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat;

       And by the Holy rood

       A man all light, a seraph-man,

       On every corse there stood.

      This СКАЧАТЬ