And now all in mine own countrée I stood on the firm land! The Hermit stepped forth from the boat, 'O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy Man !' The Hermit crossed his brow. 'Say quick,' quoth he, I bid thee say What manner man art thou?' Forthwith this frame of mind was wrenched With a woeful agony, Which forced me to begin my tale, 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; The moment that his face I see I know the man that must hear me ; What loud uproar bursts from that door! The wedding-guests are there; But in the garden-bower the bride And bride-maids singing are; And hark the little vesper-bell Which biddeth me to prayer. O wedding-guest! this soul hath been 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 He prayeth well who loveth well He prayeth best who loveth best The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Is gone; and now the wedding-guest He went, like one that hath been stunned And is of sense forlorn : A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn. |