Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems (1798). William Wordsworth

thin they are and sere!

      "I never saw aught like to them

        "Unless perchance it were

      "The skeletons of leaves that lag

        "My forest brook along:

      "When the Ivy-tod is heavy with snow,

      "And the Owlet whoops to the wolf below

        "That eats the she-wolf's young.

      "Dear Lord! it has a fiendish look" —

        (The Pilot made reply)

      "I am a-fear'd. – "Push on, push on!"

        Said the Hermit cheerily.

      The Boat came closer to the Ship,

        But I ne spake ne stirr'd!

      The Boat came close beneath the Ship,

        And strait a sound was heard!

      Under the water it rumbled on,

        Still louder and more dread:

      It reach'd the Ship, it split the bay;

        The Ship went down like lead.

      Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound,

        Which sky and ocean smote:

      Like one that hath been seven days drown'd

        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 mov'd my lips: the Pilot shriek'd

        And fell down in a fit.

      The Holy Hermit rais'd his eyes

        And pray'd where he did sit.

      I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,

        Who now doth crazy go,

      Laugh'd 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 mine own Countrée

        I stood on the firm land!

      The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,

        And scarcely he could stand.

      "O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy Man!"

        The Hermit cross'd his brow —

      "Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say

        "What manner man art thou?"

      Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd

        With a woeful agony,

      Which forc'd me to begin my tale

        And then it left me free.

      Since then at an uncertain hour,

        Now oftimes and now fewer,

      That anguish comes and makes me tell

        My ghastly aventure.

      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;

        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 Bride-maids 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, who loveth us,

        He made and loveth all.

      The Marinere, whose eye is bright,

        Whose beard with age is hoar,

      Is gone; and now the wedding-guest

        Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.

      He went, like one that hath been stunn'd

        And is of sense forlorn:

      A sadder and a wiser man

        He rose the morrow morn.

      THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE, A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT

FOSTER-MOTHER

      I never saw the man whom you describe.

MARIA

      'Tis strange! he spake of you familiarly

      As mine and Albert's common Foster-mother.

FOSTER-MOTHER

      Now blessings on the man, whoe'er he be,

      That joined your names with mine! O my sweet lady,

      As often as I think of those dear times

      When you two little ones would stand at eve

      On each side of my chair, and make me learn

      All you had learnt in the day; and how to talk

      In gentle phrase, then bid me sing to you —

      'Tis more like heaven to come than what has been.

MARIA

      O my dear Mother! this strange man has left me

      Troubled with wilder fancies, than the moon

      Breeds in the love-sick maid who gazes at it,

      Till lost in inward vision, with wet eye

      She gazes idly! – But that entrance, Mother!

FOSTER-MOTHER

      Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale!

MARIA

      No one.

FOSTER-MOTHER

              My husband's father told it me,

      Poor old Leoni! – Angels rest his soul!

      He