Читать книгу Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798) - William Wordsworth, Coleridge Samuel Taylor - Страница 6

"I fear thee, ancyent Marinere!

  "I fear thy skinny hand;

"And thou art long and lank and brown

  "As is the ribb'd Sea-sand.

"I fear thee and thy glittering eye

  "And thy skinny hand so brown" —

Fear not, fear not, thou wedding guest!

  This body dropt not down.

Alone, alone, all all alone

  Alone on the wide wide Sea;

And Christ would take no pity on

  My soul in agony.

The many men so beautiful,

  And they all dead did lie!

And a million million slimy things

  Liv'd on – and so did I.

I look'd upon the rotting Sea,

  And drew my eyes away;

I look'd upon the eldritch deck,

  And there the dead men lay.

I look'd to Heaven, and try'd to pray;

  But or ever a prayer had gusht,

A wicked whisper came and made

  My heart as dry as dust.

I clos'd my lids and kept them close,

  Till the balls like pulses beat;

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky

Lay like a load on my weary eye,

  And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,

  Ne rot, ne reek did they;

The look with which they look'd on me,

  Had never pass'd away.

An orphan's curse would drag to Hell

  A spirit from on high:

But O! more horrible than that

  Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

Seven days, seven nights I saw that curse

  And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky

  And no where did abide:

Softly she was going up

  And a star or two beside —

Her beams bemock'd the sultry main

  Like morning frosts yspread;

But where the ship's huge shadow lay,

The charmed water burnt alway

  A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship

  I watch'd the water-snakes:

They mov'd in tracks of shining white;

And when they rear'd, the elfish light

  Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship

  I watch'd their rich attire:

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black

They coil'd and swam; and every track

  Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! no tongue

  Their beauty might declare:

A spring of love gusht from my heart,

  And I bless'd them unaware!

Sure my kind saint took pity on me,

  And I bless'd them unaware.

The self-same moment I could pray;

  And from my neck so free

The Albatross fell off, and sank

  Like lead into the sea.