by Paul Keegan
KNIFE-GRINDER
‘Story! God bless you! I have none to tell, Sir,
Only last night a-drinking at the Chequers,
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were
Torn in a scuffle.
‘Constables came up for to take me into
Custody; they took me before the Justice;
Justice OLDMIXON put me in the Parish-
Stocks for a Vagrant.
‘I should be glad to drink your Honour’s health in
A Pot of Beer, if you will give me Sixpence;
But for my part, I never love to meddle
With Politics, Sir.’
FRIEND OF HUMANITY
‘I give thee Sixpence! I will see thee damn’d first –
Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to vengeance –
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcast!’
(Kicks the Knife-grinder, overturns his Wheel, and exit in a transport of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.)
CHARLOTTE SMITH Sonnet. On being Cautioned against Walking on a Headland Overlooking the Sea, Because It was Frequented by a Lunatic
Is there a solitary wretch who hies
To the tall cliff, with starting pace or slow,
And, measuring, views with wild and hollow eyes
Its distance from the waves that chide below;
Who, as the sea-born gale with frequent sighs
Chills his cold bed upon the mountain turf,
With hoarse, half-utter’d lamentation, lies
Murmuring responses to the dashing surf?
In moody sadness, on the giddy brink,
I see him more with envy than with fear;
He has no nice felicities that shrink
From giant horrors; wildly wandering here,
He seems (uncursed with reason) not to know
The depth or the duration of his woe.
from Lyrical Ballads 1798
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE from The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere, in Seven Parts
ARGUMENT
How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by Storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the Tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country.
I
It is an ancyent Marinere,
And he stoppeth one of three:
‘By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye
Now wherefore stoppest me?
‘The Bridegroom’s doors are open’d wide,
And I am next of kin;
The Guests are met, the Feast is set, –
May’st hear the merry din.’
But still he holds the wedding-guest –
There was a Ship, quoth he –
‘Nay, if thou’st got a laughsome tale,
‘Marinere! come with me.’
He holds him with his skinny hand,
Quoth he, there was a Ship –
‘Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard Loon!
‘Or my Staff shall make thee skip.’
He holds him with his glittering eye –
The wedding guest stood still
And listens like a three year’s child;
The Marinere hath his will.
The wedding-guest sate on a stone,
He cannot chuse but hear:
And thus spake on that ancyent man,
The bright-eyed Marinere.
The Ship was cheer’d, the Harbour clear’d –
Merrily did we drop
Below the Kirk, below the Hill,
Below the Light-house top.
The Sun came up upon the left,
Out of the Sea came he:
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the Sea.
Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon –
The wedding-guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.
The Bride hath pac’d into the Hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry Minstralsy.
The wedding-guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot chuse but hear:
And thus spake on that ancyent Man,
The bright-eyed Marinere.
Listen, Stranger! Storm and Wind,
A Wind and Tempest strong!
For days and weeks it play’d us freaks –
Like Chaff we drove along.
Listen, Stranger! Mist and Snow,
And it grew wond’rous cauld:
And Ice mast-high came floating by
As green as Emerauld.
And thro’ the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen;
Ne shapes of men ne beasts we ken –
The Ice was all between.
The Ice was here, the Ice was there,
The Ice was all around:
It crack’d and growl’d, and roar’d and howl’d –
Like noises of a swound.
At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough the Fog it came;
And an it were a Christian Soul,
We hail’d it in God’s name.
The Marineres gave it biscuit-worms,
And round and round it flew:
The Ice did split with a Thunder-fit,
The Helmsman steer’d us thro’.
And a good south wind sprung up behind,
The Albatross did follow;
And every day for food or play
Came to the Marinere’s hollo!
In mist or cloud on mast or shroud,
It perch’d for vespers nine,
Whiles all the night thro’ fog-smoke white,
Glimmer’d the white moon-shine.
‘God save thee, ancyent Marinere!
From the fiends that plague thee thus –
Why look’st thou so?’ – with my cross bow
I shot the Albatross.II
II
The Sun came up upon the right,
Out of the Sea came he;
And broad as a weft upon the left
Went down into the Sea.
And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet Bird did follow
Ne any day for food or play
Came to the Marinere’s hollo!
And I had done an hellish thing
And it would work ’em woe:
For all averr’d, I had kill’d the Bird
That made the Breeze to blow.
Ne dim ne red, like God’s own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averr’d, I had kill’d the Bird
That brought the fog and mist.
’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay
That bring the fog and mist.
The breezes blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow follow’d free:
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent Sea.
Down dropt the breeze, the Sails dropt down,
’Twas sad as sad could be
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the Sea.
And in a hot and copper sky
The bloody sun at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.
Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, ne breath ne motion,
As idle as a painted Ship
Upon a painted Ocean.
Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Ne any drop to drink.
The very deeps did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy Sea
.
About, about, in reel and rout,
The Death-fires danc’d at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green and blue and white.
And some in dreams assured were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so:
Nine fathom deep he had follow’d us
From the Land of Mist and Snow.
And every tongue thro’ utter drouth
Was wither’d at the root;
We could not speak no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Ah wel-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young;
Instead of the Cross the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
III
I saw a something in the Sky
No bigger than my fist;
At first it seem’d a little speck
And then it seem’d a mist:
It mov’d and mov’d, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.
A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it ner’d and ner’d;
And, an it dodg’d a water-sprite,
It plung’d and tack’d and veer’d.
With throat unslack’d, with black lips bak’d
Ne could we laugh, ne wail:
Then while thro’ drouth all dumb they stood
I bit my arm and suck’d the blood
And cry’d, A sail! a sail!
With throat unslack’d, with black lips bak’d
Agape they hear’d me call:
Gramercy! they for joy did grin
And all at once their breath drew in
As they were drinking all.
She doth not tack from side to side –
Hither to work us weal
Withouten wind, withouten tide
She steddies with upright keel.
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 strait the Sun was fleck’d with bars
(Heaven’s mother send us grace)
As if thro’ a dungeon grate he peer’d
With broad and burning face.
Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she neres and neres!
Are those her Sails that glance in the Sun
Like restless gossameres?
Are those her naked ribs, which fleck’d
The sun that did behind them peer?
And are these two all, all the crew,
That woman and her fleshless Pheere?
His bones were black with many a crack,
All black and bare, I ween;
Jet-black and bare, save where with rust
Of mouldy damps and charnel crust
They’re patch’d with purple and green.
Her lips are red, her looks are free,
Her locks are yellow as gold:
Her skin is as white as leprosy,
And she is far liker Death than he;
Her flesh makes the still air cold.
The naked Hulk alongside came
And the Twain were playing dice;
‘The Game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!’
Quoth she, and whistled thrice.
A gust of wind sterte up behind
And whistled thro’ his bones;
Thro’ the holes of his eyes and the hole of his mouth
Half-whistles and half-groans.
With never a whisper in the Sea
Off darts the Spectre-ship;
While clombe above the Eastern bar
The horned Moon, with one bright Star
Almost atween the tips.
One after one by the horned Moon
(Listen, O Stranger! to me)
Each turn’d his face with a ghastly pang
And curs’d me with his ee.
Four times fifty living men,
With never a sigh or groan,
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump
They dropp’d down one by one.
Their souls did from their bodies fly, –
They fled to bliss or woe;
And every soul it pass’d me by,
Like the whiz of my Cross-bow.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Old Man Travelling. Animal Tranquillity and Decay, A Sketch
The little hedge-row birds,
That peck along the road, regard him not.
He travels on, and in his face, his step,
His gait, is one expression; every limb,
His look and bending figure, all bespeak
A man who does not move with pain, but moves
With thought – He is insensibly subdued
To settled quiet: he is one by whom
All effort seems forgotten, one to whom
Long patience has such mild composure given,
That patience now doth seem a thing, of which
He hath no need. He is by nature led
To peace so perfect, that the young behold
With envy, what the old man hardly feels.
– I asked him whither he was bound, and what
The object of his journey; he replied
‘Sir! I am going many miles to take
A last leave of my son, a mariner,
Who from a sea-fight has been brought to Falmouth,
And there is dying in an hospital. –’
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH Lines Written a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798
Five years have passed; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a sweet inland murmur. – Once again