Part 2 (1/2)

Is the night chilly and dark?

The night is chilly, but not dark.

The thin gray cloud is spread on high, It covers but not hides the sky.

The moon is behind, and at the full; And yet she looks both small and dull.

The night is chill, the cloud is gray: 'Tis a month before the month of May, And the Spring comes slowly up this way.

The lovely lady, Christabel, Whom her father loves so well, What makes her in the wood so late, A furlong from the castle gate?

She had dreams all yesternight Of her own betrothed knight; And she in the midnight wood will pray For the weal of her lover that's far away.

She stole along, she nothing spoke, The sighs she heaved were soft and low, And naught was green upon the oak, But moss and rarest mistletoe: She kneels beneath the huge oak tree, And in silence prayeth she.

The lady sprang up suddenly, The lovely lady, Christabel!

It moaned as near, as near can be, But what it is, she cannot tell.-- On the other side it seems to be, Of the huge, broad-breasted, old oak tree.

There she sees a damsel bright, Drest in a silken robe of white, That shadowy in the moonlight shone: The neck that made that white robe wan, Her stately neck, and arms were bare; Her blue-veined feet unsandal'd were, And wildly glittered here and there The gems entangled in her hair.

I guess, 'twas frightful there to see A lady so richly clad as she-- Beautiful exceedingly!

And a chilly basis, these solemnly-propounded theories, for the gorgeous fabric of _The Ancient Mariner_. Originally founded, as regards its main outlines, upon a dream which occurred to Cruikshank,--a dream of a skeleton s.h.i.+p with figures in it,--who could have antic.i.p.ated such results as that unforgettable scene where ”The Ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off”?--

The western wave was all a-flame; The day was well nigh done; Almost upon the western wave Rested the broad bright Sun; When that strange shape drove suddenly Betwixt us and the Sun.

And straight the Sun was flecked with bars (Heaven's Mother send us grace!) As if through a dungeon-grate he peered With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud) How fast she nears and nears!

Are those _her_ sails that glance in the Sun, Like restless gossameres!

Are those _her_ ribs through which the Sun Did peer, as through a grate?

And is that Woman all her crew?

Is that a Death? and are there two?

Is Death that woman's mate?

_Her_ lips were red, _her_ looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was as white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came, And the twain were casting dice; 'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'

Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea, Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened, and looked sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night, The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip-- Till clomb above the eastern bar The horned Moon, with one bright star Within the nether tip.

Or who could have supposed that Wordsworth's subsequent suggestion for the plot of the poem, ”Suppose you represent the Mariner as having killed an Albatross on entering the South Sea, and that the tutelary spirits of these regions take upon themselves to avenge the crime,” should develop into that magnificent defence of the animal right to live, which, in Coleridge's opinion, obtruded a moral sentiment too openly in a work of such pure imagination? The curse of remorse, throughout the whole story, hangs as heavy on the seaman's soul as does the dead weight of the Albatross around his neck: until that mystical moment when he blesses the beauty of the ”happy living things” in the water, ”G.o.d's creatures of the great calm,”