AFTER COLERIDGE

THE ANCIENT MARINER

(The Wedding Guest's Version of the Affair from His Point of View)

T is an Ancient Mariner,

IT

And he stoppeth one of three-
In fact he coolly took my arm

"There was a ship," quoth he.

"Bother your ships!" said I, "is this
The time a yarn to spin?
This is a wedding, don't you see,
And I am next of kin.

"The wedding breakfast has begun,

We're hungry as can be —

Hold off! Unhand me, longshore man!"
With that his hand dropt he.

But there was something in his eye,

That made me sick and ill,

Yet forced to listen to his yarn

The Mariner'd had his will.

While Tom and Harry went their way
I sat upon a stone

So queer on Fanny's wedding day
Me sitting there alone!

Then he began, that Mariner,
To rove from pole to pole,

In one long-winded, lengthened-out,
Eternal rigmarole,

About a ship in which he'd sailed,

Though whither, goodness knows, Where "ice will split with a thunder-fit," And every day it snows.

And then about a precious bird

Of some sort or another,

That

was such nonsense ever heard?

Used to control the weather!

Now, at this bird the Mariner
Resolved to have a shy,

And laid it low with his cross-bow-
And then the larks! My eye!

For loss of that uncommon fowl,
They could n't get a breeze;
And there they stuck, all out of luck,
And rotted on the seas.

The crew all died, or seemed to die,
And he was left alone

With that queer bird. You never heard
What games were carried on!

At last one day he stood and watched
The fishes in the sea,

And said, "I'm blest!" and so the ship
Was from the spell set free.

And it began to rain and blow,

And as it rained and blew,

The dead got up and worked the ship

That was a likely crew!

However, somehow he escaped,

And got again to land,

But mad as any hatter, say,

From Cornhill to the Strand.

For he believes that certain folks
Are singled out by fate,
To whom this cock-and-bull affair
Of his he must relate.

Describing all the incidents,

And painting all the scenes, As sailors will do in the tales They tell to the Marines.

Confound the Ancient Mariner!
I knew I should be late;
And so it was; the wedding guests
Had all declined to wait.

Another had my place, and gave

My toast; and sister Fan

Said "'T was a shame. What could

With that seafaring man?”

I felt like one that had been stunned

Through all this wrong and scorn;

A sadder and a later man

I rose the morrow morn.

you want

Anonymous

I

STRIKING

T was a railway passenger,
And he lept out jauntilie.

"Now up and bear, thou stout portèr,

My two chattèls to me.

"Bring hither, bring hither my bag so red,
And portmanteau so brown;

(They lie in the van, for a trusty man
He labelled them London town:)

"And fetch me eke a cabman bold,

That I may be his fare, his fare;
And he shall have a good shilling,
If by two of the clock he do me bring
To the Terminus, Euston Square."

"Now, so to thee the saints alway,
Good gentleman, give luck, —

As never a cab may I find this day,
For the cabman wights have struck.

And now, I wis, at the Red Post Inn,
Or else at the Dog and Duck,

Or at Unicorn Blue, or at Green Griffin,
The nut-brown ale and the fine old gin
Right pleasantly they do suck.”

"Now rede me aright, thou stout portèr,
What were it best that I should do:
For woe is me, an' I reach not there
Or ever the clock strike two."

"I have a son, a lytel son;

Fleet is his foot as the wild roebuck's:
Give him a shilling, and eke a brown,
And he shall carry thy fardels down.
To Euston, or half over London town,
On one of the station trucks."

Then forth in a hurry did they twain fare,
The
gent and the son of the stout portèr,
Who fled like an arrow, nor turned a hair,
Through all the mire and muck:

"A ticket, a ticket, sir clerk, I pray :

For by two of the clock must I needs away.” "That may hardly be," the clerk did say,

"For indeed the clocks have struck."

Charles S. Calverley.