The boat came closer to the ship,

But I nor spake nor stirred;

The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,

Still louder and more dread:

It reacht the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,

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,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips-the pilot shrieked,
And fell down in a fit;

The holy hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the pilot's boy,

Who now doth crazy go,

Laughed loud and long, and all the while

His eyes went to and fro:

Ha! ha!' quoth he, full plain I see

The Devil knows how to row!'

And now, all in my own countree,

I stood on the firm land!

The hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!'
The hermit crost his brow;

'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say What manner of man art thou?'

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched

With a woful agony,

Which forced me to begin my tale;

The ship suddenly sinketh.

The ancient Mariner is saved in the pilot's boat.

The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him:

And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,

That agony returns;

And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

I pass like night from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,

I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:

But in the garden-bower the bride
And bridemaids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea;

So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

O! sweeter than the marriage feast,

"Tis sweeter far to me

To walk together to the kirk

With a goodly company!

To walk together to the kirk,

And all together pray,

While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay.

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest:
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God that loveth us,
He made and loveth all.

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the Wedding-Guest

And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land,

And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.

He went like one that hath been stunned,

And is of sense forlorn:

A sadder and a wiser man

He rose the morrow morn.

[The following is the passage referred to in the Introductory Note, as having been supposed to have furnished Coleridge with the principal incident of this ballad. It is found in a work entitled, A Voyage round the World by Way of the Great South Sea, performed in the years 1719-20-21-22, in the Speedwell of London, of 24 Guns, and 100 Men, (under his Majesty's Commission to Cruize on the Spaniards, in the late War with the Spanish Crown,) till she was cast away on the Island of Juan Fernandes, in May, 1720; and afterwards continued in the Recovery, the Jesus Maria, and Sacra Família, &c. By Capt. George Shelvocke, Commander of the Speedwell, Recovery, &c., in this Expedition. London, 1726.'

"We had not had the sight of one fish of any kind, since we were come to the southward of the Streights of Le Mair, nor one sea-bird, except a disconsolate black Albitross, who accompanied us for several days, hovering about us as if he had lost himself, till Hatley, (my Second Captain,) observing, in one of his melancholy fits, that this bird was always hovering near us imagined, from his colour, that it might be some ill omen. That which, I suppose, induced him the more to encourage his superstition, was, the continued series of contrary, tempestuous winds, which had oppressed us ever since we had got into this sea. But be that as it would, he, after some fruitless attempts, at length shot the Albitross, not doubting (perhaps) that we should have a fair wind of it.' This hope, however, was not realized, for the bad weather continued until the vessel was eventually cast away,' as the title page expresses it, ‘on the Island of Juan Fernandes."]

[This balled is taken from Blackwood's Magazine," for February 1819, where it first appeared. The author was the well-known correspondent of that periodical, who wrote under the name of Morgan O'Doherty; and was, as indeed it can be scarcely necessary to say, the late Dr. Maginn. The reader,' he says, will learn with astonishment, that I composed the following ballad in the fourteenth year of my age. I doubt if either Milton or Pope rivalled this precocity of genius. The reader will at once detect the resemblance which it bears to a well-known and justly celebrated piece of Scott. In fact it is, as the reader will see, a parody of the preceding ballad, The Eve of St. John;' and one which cannot, it is thought, be considered to overstep the bounds of good natured pleasantry. As to St. Jerry, I have in vain scrutinized the calendar,' says Mr. O'Doherty, 'for the name of this saint."]

ICK Gossip the barber arose with the cock,

And pull'd his breeches on;

Down the staircase of wood, as fast as he could,

The valiant shaver ran.

He went not to the country forth

To shave or frizzle hair;

Nor to join in the battle to be fought

At Canterbury fair.

Yet his hat was fiercely cocked, and his razors in his pocket, And his torturing irons he bore;

A staff of crab-tree in his hand had he,

Full five feet long and more.

The barber return'd in three day's space,
And blistered were his feet;
And sad and peevish were his looks,
As he turn'd the corner street.

He came not from where Canterbury
Ran ankle-deep in blood;

Where butcher Jem, and his comrades grim,
The shaving tribe withstood.

Yet were his eyes bruis'd black and blue;
His cravat twisted and tore;

His razors were with gore imbued-
But it was not professional gore.

He halted at the painted pole,
Full loudly did he rap,
And whistled on his shaving boy,
Whose name was Johnny Strap.

Come hither, come hither, young
And mind that you tell me true,

tickle-beard,

For these three long days that I've been away,

What did Mrs. Gossip do?

When the clock struck eight, Mrs. Gossip went straight,

In spite of the pattering rain,

Without stay or stop to the butcher's shop,

That lives in Cleaver-lane.

I watcht her steps, and secret came
Where she sat upon a chair,

No person was in the butcher's shop,-
The devil a soul was there.

The second night I'spy'd a light
As I went up the strand,

'Twas she who ran, with pattens on,