Charles Dickens - Quotes & Sayings

Charles Dickens quotes - http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/239579.Charles_Dickens?page=3

"There is nothing better than a friend, unless it is a friend with chocolate."


"There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts."
— Oliver Twist


"Have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never hurts."

"It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another."
— Charles Dickens

"To conceal anything from those to whom I am attached, is not in my nature. I can never close my lips where I have opened my heart."
— Charles Dickens

"We need never be ashamed of our tears."
— Charles Dickens

"Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts. I was better after I had cried, than before--more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle"
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"Never close your lips to those whom you have already opened your heart."
— Charles Dickens


"There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor."
— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)


"Every traveler has a home of his own, and he learns to appreciate it the more from his wandering."
— Charles Dickens


"I hope that real love and truth are stronger in the end than any evil or misfortune in the world."
— Charles Dickens


"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)


"A loving heart is the truest wisdom."
— Charles Dickens

"Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape"
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"No one who can read, ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf, like one who cannot."
— Charles Dickens (Our Mutual Friend)


"What greater gift than the love of a cat."
— Charles Dickens


"Procrastination is the thief of time, collar him."
— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

"Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some."
— Charles Dickens

"My meaning simply is, that whatever I have tried to do in life, I have tried with all my heart to do well; that whatever I have devoted myself to, I have devoted myself to completely; that in great aims and in small, I have always been thoroughly in earnest."
— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

"In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"Love her, love her, love her! If she favours you, love her. If she wounds you, love her. If she tears your heart to pieces – and as it gets older and stronger, it will tear deeper – love her, love her, love her!"
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"I wear the chain I forged in life....I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."
— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)

"There is a wisdom of the head, and... there is a wisdom of the heart."
— Charles Dickens (Hard Times)


"You have been the last dream of my soul."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)


"I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. "
— Charles Dickens

"Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we'd give blood."
— Charles Dickens

"A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"If there were no bad people, there would be no good lawyers."

— Charles Dickens

"Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show."
— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

"To a young heart everything is fun."
— Charles Dickens

"It is because I think so much of warm and sensitive hearts, that I would spare them from being wounded."

— Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist)

"I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. Once for all; I knew to my sorrow, often and often, if not always, that I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be. Once for all; I love her none the less because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection. (Pip, Great Expectations)"
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato. There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"
— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)

"There either is or is not, that’s the way things are. The colour of the day. The way it felt to be a child. The saltwater on your sunburnt legs. Sometimes the water is yellow, sometimes it’s red. But what colour it may be in memory, depends on the day. I’m not going to tell you the story the way it happened. I’m going to tell it the way I remember it."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father's face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!"
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"Although a skillful flatterer is a most delightful companion if you have him all to yourself, his taste becomes very doubtful when he takes to complimenting other people."
— Charles Dickens

"Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it."
— Charles Dickens

"Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy."
— Charles Dickens (Our Mutual Friend)

"The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed; but a thing created is loved before it exists."
— Charles Dickens

"Trifles make the sum of life. "
— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

"My advice is to never do tomorrow what you can do today. Procrastination is the thief of time."
— Charles Dickens

"The most important thing in life is to stop saying 'I wish' and start saying 'I will.' Consider nothing impossible, then treat possiblities as probabilities."
— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

"Every idiot who goes about with a 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart."
— Charles Dickens

"You are part of my existence, part of myself. You have been in every line I have ever read, since I first came here, the rough common boy whose poor heart you wounded even then. You have been in every prospect I have ever seen since – on the river, on the sails of the ships, on the marshes, in the clouds, in the light, in the darkness, in the wind, in the woods, in the sea, in the streets. You have been the embodiment of every graceful fancy that my mind has ever become acquainted with. The stones of which the strongest London buildings are made, are not more real, or more impossible to displace with your hands, than your presence and influence have been to me, there and everywhere, and will be. Estella, to the last hour of my life, you cannot choose but remain part of my character, part of the little good in me, part of the evil." – (Pip, Great Expectations)"
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"I do not know the American gentleman, God forgive me for putting two such words together."
— Charles Dickens

"Death may beget life, but oppression can beget nothing other than itself."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"I'll tell you," said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, "what real love it. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter - as I did!" – (Miss Havisham, Great Expectations)"
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"So throughout life, our worst weaknesses and meannesses are usually committed for the sake of the people whom we most despise."

— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)


"The pain of parting is nothing to the joy of meeting again."

— Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

"She was the most wonderful woman for prowling about the house. How she got from one story to another was a mystery beyond solution. A lady so decorous in herself, and so highly connected, was not to be suspected of dropping over the banisters or sliding down them, yet her extraordinary facility of locomotion suggested the wild idea."
— Charles Dickens (Hard Times)

"There is prodigious strength in sorrow and despair."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"Credit is a system whereby a person who can't pay gets another person who can't pay to guarantee that he can pay."

— Charles Dickens

"Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes"
— Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

"We forge the chains we wear in life."
— Charles Dickens

"I must do something or I shall wear my heart away..."
— Charles Dickens

"Marley was dead: to begin with."
— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)

"When I speak of home, I speak of the place where in default of a better--those I love are gathered together; and if that place where a gypsy's tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding."
— Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

"Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of good looks."
— Charles Dickens

"Spring is the time of year when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade."

— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)


"There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose."

— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop," returned madame; "but don't tell me."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"He would make a lovely corpse."
— Charles Dickens (Martin Chuzzlewit)

"I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"Take nothing on its looks; take everything on evidence. There's no better rule."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"I have been bent and broken, but - I hope - into a better shape."
— Charles Dickens

"I had considered how the things that never happen, are often as much realities to us, in their effects, as those that are accomplished."
— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)

"I only ask to be free, the butterflies are free."
— Charles Dickens

"My heart is set, as firmly as ever heart of man was set on woman. I have no thought, no view, no hope, in life beyond her; and if you oppose me in this great stake, you take my peace and happiness in your hands, and cast them to the wind."
— Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist)

"In a utilitarian age, of all other times, it is a matter of grave importance that fairy tales should be respected."
— Charles Dickens

"It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, 'A life you love."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

"Poetry makes life what lights and music do the stage."
— Charles Dickens (The Pickwick Papers)

"I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
— Charles Dickens

"Moths, and all sorts of ugly creatures hover about a lighted candle. Can the candle help it?"
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"How could you give me life, and take from me all the inappreciable things that raise it from the state of conscious death? Where are the graces of my soul? Where are the sentiments of my heart? What have you done, oh, Father, What have you done with the garden that should have bloomed once, in this great wilderness here? Said louisa as she touched her heart."
— Charles Dickens (Hard Times)

"I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so, the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her."

— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"I was always treated as if I had insisted on being born, in opposition to the dictates of reason, religion, and morality, and against the dissuading arguments of my best friends."
— Charles Dickens

"I must be taken as I have been made. The success is not mine, the failure is not mine, but the two together make me." – (Estella, Great Expectations)"
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself"
— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)

"Dreams are the bright creatures of poem and legend, who sport on earth in the night season, and melt away in the first beam of the sun, which lights grim care and stern reality on their daily pilgrimage through the world."
— Charles Dickens (Nicholas Nickleby)

"No varnish can hide the grain of the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will express itself."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)

"In the little world in which children have their existence, whosoever brings them up, there is nothing so finely perceived and so finely felt as injustice."
— Charles Dickens

"Electric communication will never be a substitute for the face of someone who with their soul encourages another person to be brave and true."
— Charles Dickens

"It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour."

— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)


"I know that she deserves the best and purest love the heart of man can offer," said Mrs. Maylie; "I know that the devotion and affection of her nature require no ordinary return, but one that shall be deep and lasting."

— Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist)


"They are Man's and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased."
— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)


"I never could have done what I have done, without the habits of punctuality, order, and diligence, without the determination to concentrate myself on one object at a time."
— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)


"I don't mean to say that, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a doornail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a doornail."

— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)


"It is not possible to know how far the influence of any amiable, honest-hearted duty-doing man flies out into the world, but it is very possible to know how it has touched one's self in going by."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)


"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery."
— Charles Dickens (David Copperfield)


"Women can always put things in fewest words. Except when it's blowing up; and then they lengthens it out."
— Charles Dickens (Oliver Twist)


"I had seen the damp lying on the outside of my little window, as if some goblin had been crying there all night, and using the window for a pocket-handkerchief."
— Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)


"Remember!--It is Christianity to do good always--even to those who do evil to us. It is Christianity to love our neighbors as ourself, and to do to all men as we would have them do to us. It is Christianity to be gentle, merciful and forgiving, and to keep those qualities quiet in our own hearts, and never make a boast of them or of our prayers or of our love of God, but always to show that we love Him by humbly trying to do right in everything. If we do this, and remember the life and lessons of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and try to act up to them, we may confidently hope that God will forgive us our sins and mistakes, and enable us to live and die in peace."
— Charles Dickens


"Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)


"No space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused"
— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)


"He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. (p. 119)"

— Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol)


"Mr Lorry asks the witness questions:
Ever been kicked?
Might have been.
Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs?
Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord."
— Charles Dickens (A Tale of Two Cities)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
http://www.bartleby.com/101/549.html


by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834

arranged by R.E. Slater, Poet (May 25, 2011)


In Seven Part Argument


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 her; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country. 

An ancient Mariner meeteth three gallants bidden to a wedding feast, and detaineth one.	PART I IT is an ancient Mariner,
	And he stoppeth one of three.
	'By thy long beard and glittering eye,
	Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
	The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
	And I am next of kin;
	The guests are met, the feast is set:
	May'st hear the merry din.'
	He holds him with his skinny hand,
	'There was a ship,' quoth he.
	'Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!'
	Eftsoons his hand dropt he.
The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.	He holds him with his glittering eye—
	The Wedding-Guest stood still,
	And listens like a three years' child:
	The Mariner hath his will.
	The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
	He cannot choose but hear;
	And thus spake on that ancient man,
	The bright-eyed Mariner.
	'The ship was cheer'd, the harbour clear'd,
	Merrily did we drop
	Below the kirk, below the hill,
	Below the lighthouse top.
The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the Line.	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 Wedding-Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner continueth his tale.	The bride hath paced into the hall,
	Red as a rose is she;
	Nodding their heads before her goes
	The merry minstrelsy.
	The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
	Yet he cannot choose but hear;
	And thus spake on that ancient man,
	The bright-eyed Mariner.
The ship drawn by a storm toward the South Pole.	'And now the Storm-blast came, and he
	Was tyrannous and strong:
	He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
	And chased us south along.
	With sloping masts and dipping prow,
	As who pursued with yell and blow
	Still treads the shadow of his foe,
	And forward bends his head,
	The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast,
	The southward aye we fled.
	And now there came both mist and snow,
	And it grew wondrous cold:
	And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
	As green as emerald.
The land of ice, and of fearful sounds, where no living thing was to be seen.	And through the drifts the snowy clifts
	Did send a dismal sheen:
	Nor shapes of men nor 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 in a swound!
Till a great sea-bird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.	At length did cross an Albatross,
	As if it had been a Christian soul,
	We hail'd it in God's name.
	It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
	And round and round it flew.
	The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
	The helmsman steer'd us through!
And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice.	And a good south wind sprung up behind;
	The Albatross did follow,
	And every day, for food or play,
	Came to the mariners' hollo!
	In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
	It perch'd for vespers nine;
	Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
	Glimmer'd the white moonshine.'
The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.	'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
	From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
	Why look'st thou so?'—'With my crossbow
	I shot the Albatross.
	PART II
	'The Sun now rose upon the right:
	Out of the sea came he,
	Still hid in mist, and on the left
	Went down into the sea.
	And the good south wind still blew behind,
	But no sweet bird did follow,
	Nor any day for food or play
	Came to the mariners' hollo!
His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner for killing the bird of good luck.	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.
	Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
	That made the breeze to blow!
But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.	Nor dim nor 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 fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till it reaches the Line.	The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
	The furrow follow'd free;
	We were the first that ever burst
	Into that silent sea.
The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.	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!
	All 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, nor breath nor motion;
	As idle as a painted ship
	Upon a painted ocean.
And the Albatross begins to be avenged.	Water, water, everywhere,
	And all the boards did shrink;
	Water, water, everywhere,
	Nor any drop to drink.
	The very deep 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 danced at night;
	The water, like a witch's oils,
	Burnt green, and blue, and white.
A Spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.	And some in dreams assuréd were
	Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
	Nine fathom deep he had followed us
	From the land of mist and snow.
	And every tongue, through utter drought,
	Was wither'd at the root;
	We could not speak, no more than if
	We had been choked with soot.
The shipmates in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner: in sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.	Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
	Had I from old and young!
	Instead of the cross, the Albatross
	About my neck was hung.
	PART III
	'There passed a weary time. Each throat
	Was parch'd, and glazed each eye.
	A weary time! a weary time!
	How glazed each weary eye!
The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.	When looking westward, I beheld
	A something in the sky.
	At first it seem'd a little speck,
	And then it seem'd a mist;
	It moved and moved, and took at last
	A certain shape, I wist.
	A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
	And still it near'd and near'd:
	As if it dodged a water-sprite,
	It plunged, and tack'd, and veer'd.
At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.	With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
	We could nor laugh nor wail;
	Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
	I bit my arm, I suck'd the blood,
	And cried, A sail! a sail!
	With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
	Agape they heard me call:
A flash of joy;	Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
	And all at once their breath drew in,
	As they were drinking all.
And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide?	See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
	Hither to work us weal—
	Without a breeze, without a tide,
	She steadies with upright keel!
	The western wave was all aflame,
	The day was wellnigh done!
	Almost upon the western wave
	Rested the broad, bright Sun;
	When that strange shape drove suddenly
	Betwixt us and the Sun.
It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.	And straight the Sun was fleck'd with bars
	(Heaven's Mother send us grace!),
	As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd
	With broad and burning face.
	Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
	How fast she nears and nears!
	Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
	Like restless gossameres?
And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun. The Spectre-Woman and her Death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton ship. Like vessel, like crew!	Are those her ribs through which the Sun
	Did peer, as through a grate?
	And is that Woman all her crew?
	Is that a Death? and are there two?
	Is Death that Woman's mate?
	Her lips were red, her looks were free,
	Her locks were yellow as gold:
	Her skin was as white as leprosy,
	The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
	Who thicks man's blood with cold.
Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.	The naked hulk alongside came,
	And the twain were casting dice;
	"The game is done! I've won! I've won!"
	Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
No twilight within the courts of the Sun.	The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
	At one stride comes the dark;
	With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
	Off shot the spectre-bark.
	We listen'd and look'd sideways up!
	Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
	My life-blood seem'd to sip!
	The stars were dim, and thick the night,
	The steersman's face by his lamp gleam'd white;
	From the sails the dew did drip—
At the rising of the Moon,	Till clomb above the eastern bar
	The hornéd Moon, with one bright star
	Within the nether tip.
One after another,	One after one, by the star-dogg'd Moon,
	Too quick for groan or sigh,
	Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang,
	And cursed me with his eye.
His shipmates drop down dead.	Four times fifty living men
	(And I heard nor sigh nor groan),
	With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
	They dropp'd down one by one.
But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.	The souls did from their bodies fly—
	They fled to bliss or woe!
	And every soul, it pass'd me by
	Like the whizz of my crossbow!'
PART IV
The Wedding-Guest feareth that a spirit is talking to him;	'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
	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.'—
But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horrible penance.	'Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
	This body dropt not down.
	Alone, alone, all, all alone,
	Alone on a wide, wide sea!
	And never a saint took pity on
	My soul in agony.
He despiseth the creatures of the calm.	The many men, so beautiful!
	And they all dead did lie:
	And a thousand thousand slimy things
	Lived on; and so did I.
And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.	I look'd upon the rotting sea,
	And drew my eyes away;
	I look'd upon the rotting deck,
	And there the dead men lay.
	I look'd to heaven, and tried to pray;
	But or ever a prayer had gusht,
	A wicked whisper came, and made
	My heart as dry as dust.
	I closed my lids, and kept them close,
	And 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.
But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.	The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
	Nor rot nor 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 oh! 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.
In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.	The moving Moon went up the sky,
	And nowhere did abide;
	Softly she was going up,
	And a star or two beside—
	Her beams bemock'd the sultry main,
	Like April hoar-frost spread;
	But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
	The charméd water burnt alway
	A still and awful red.
By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.	Beyond the shadow of the ship,
	I watch'd the water-snakes:
	They moved 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.
Their beauty and their happiness.	O happy living things! no tongue
	Their beauty might declare:
	A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
He blesseth them in his heart.	And I bless'd them unaware:
	Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
	And I bless'd them unaware.
The spell begins to break.	The selfsame moment I could pray;
	And from my neck so free
	The Albatross fell off, and sank
	Like lead into the sea.
	PART V
	'O sleep! it is a gentle thing,
	Beloved from pole to pole!
	To Mary Queen the praise be given!
	She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
	That slid into my soul.
By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.	The silly buckets on the deck,
	That had so long remain'd,
	I dreamt that they were fill'd with dew;
	And when I awoke, it rain'd.
	My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
	My garments all were dank;
	Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
	And still my body drank.
	I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
	I was so light—almost
	I thought that I had died in sleep,
	And was a blesséd ghost.
He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.	And soon I heard a roaring wind:
	It did not come anear;
	But with its sound it shook the sails,
	That were so thin and sere.
	The upper air burst into life;
	And a hundred fire-flags sheen;
	To and fro they were hurried about!
	And to and fro, and in and out,
	The wan stars danced between.
	And the coming wind did roar more loud,
	And the sails did sigh like sedge;
	And the rain pour'd down from one black cloud;
	The Moon was at its edge.
	The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
	The Moon was at its side;
	Like waters shot from some high crag,
	The lightning fell with never a jag,
	A river steep and wide.
The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;	The loud wind never reach'd the ship,
	Yet now the ship moved on!
	Beneath the lightning and the Moon
	The dead men gave a groan.
	They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,
	Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
	It had been strange, even in a dream,
	To have seen those dead men rise.
	The helmsman steer'd, the ship moved on;
	Yet never a breeze up-blew;
	The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
	Where they were wont to do;
	They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
	We were a ghastly crew.
	The body of my brother's son
	Stood by me, knee to knee:
	The body and I pull'd at one rope,
	But he said naught to me.'
But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.	'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'
	Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest:
	'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
	Which to their corses came again,
	But a troop of spirits blest:
	For when it dawn'd—they dropp'd their arms,
	And cluster'd round the mast;
	Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
	And from their bodies pass'd.
	Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
	Then darted to the Sun;
	Slowly the sounds came back again,
	Now mix'd, now one by one.
	Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
	I heard the skylark sing;
	Sometimes all little birds that are,
	How they seem'd to fill the sea and air
	With their sweet jargoning!
	And now 'twas like all instruments,
	Now like a lonely flute;
	And now it is an angel's song,
	That makes the Heavens be mute.
	It ceased; yet still the sails made on
	A pleasant noise till noon,
	A noise like of a hidden brook
	In the leafy month of June,
	That to the sleeping woods all night
	Singeth a quiet tune.
	Till noon we quietly sail'd on,
	Yet never a breeze did breathe:
	Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
	Moved onward from beneath.
The lonesome Spirit from the South Pole carries on the ship as far as the Line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.	Under the keel nine fathom deep,
	From the land of mist and snow,
	The Spirit slid: and it was he
	That made the ship to go.
	The sails at noon left off their tune,
	And the ship stood still also.
	The Sun, right up above the mast,
	Had fix'd her to the ocean:
	But in a minute she 'gan stir,
	With a short uneasy motion—
	Backwards and forwards half her length
	With a short uneasy motion.
	Then like a pawing horse let go,
	She made a sudden bound:
	It flung the blood into my head,
	And I fell down in a swound.
The Polar Spirit's fellow-demons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.	How long in that same fit I lay,
	I have not to declare;
	But ere my living life return'd,
	I heard, and in my soul discern'd
	Two voices in the air.
	"Is it he?" quoth one, "is this the man?
	By Him who died on cross,
	With his cruel bow he laid full low
	The harmless Albatross.
	The Spirit who bideth by himself
	In the land of mist and snow,
	He loved the bird that loved the man
	Who shot him with his bow."
	The other was a softer voice,
	As soft as honey-dew:
	Quoth he, "The man hath penance done,
	And penance more will do."
	PART VI
	First Voice: '"But tell me, tell me! speak again,
	Thy soft response renewing—
	What makes that ship drive on so fast?
	What is the Ocean doing?"
	Second Voice: "Still as a slave before his lord,
	The Ocean hath no blast;
	His great bright eye most silently
	Up to the Moon is cast—
	If he may know which way to go;
	For she guides him smooth or grim.
	See, brother, see! how graciously
	She looketh down on him."
The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure.	First Voice: "But why drives on that ship so fast,
	Without or wave or wind?"
	Second Voice: "The air is cut away before,
	And closes from behind.
	Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
	Or we shall be belated:
	For slow and slow that ship will go,
	When the Mariner's trance is abated.'
The supernatural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew.	I woke, and we were sailing on
	As in a gentle weather:
	'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high;
	The dead men stood together.
	All stood together on the deck,
	For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
	All fix'd on me their stony eyes,
	That in the Moon did glitter.
	The pang, the curse, with which they died,
	Had never pass'd away:
	I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
	Nor turn them up to pray.
The curse is finally expiated.	And now this spell was snapt: once more
	I viewed the ocean green,
	And look'd far forth, yet little saw
	Of what had else been seen—
	Like one that on a lonesome road
	Doth walk in fear and dread,
	And having once turn'd round, walks on,
	And turns no more his head;
	Because he knows a frightful fiend
	Doth close behind him tread.
	But soon there breathed a wind on me,
	Nor sound nor motion made:
	Its path was not upon the sea,
	In ripple or in shade.
	It raised my hair, it fann'd my cheek
	Like a meadow-gale of spring—
	It mingled strangely with my fears,
	Yet it felt like a welcoming.
	Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
	Yet she sail'd softly too:
	Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
	On me alone it blew.
And the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.	O dream of joy! is this indeed
	The lighthouse top I see?
	Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
	Is this mine own countree?
	We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
	And I with sobs did pray—
	O let me be awake, my God!
	Or let me sleep alway.
	The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
	So smoothly it was strewn!
	And on the bay the moonlight lay,
	And the shadow of the Moon.
	The rock shone bright, the kirk no less
	That stands above the rock:
	The moonlight steep'd in silentness
	The steady weathercock.
The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,	And the bay was white with silent light
	Till rising from the same,
	Full many shapes, that shadows were,
	In crimson colours came.
And appear in their own forms of light.	A little distance from the prow
	Those crimson shadows were:
	I turn'd my eyes upon the deck—
	O Christ! what saw I there!
	Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
	And, by the holy rood!
	A man all light, a seraph-man,
	On every corse there stood.
	This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
	It was a heavenly sight!
	They stood as signals to the land,
	Each one a lovely light;
	This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
	No voice did they impart—
	No voice; but O, the silence sank
	Like music on my heart.
	But soon I heard the dash of oars,
	I heard the Pilot's cheer;
	My head was turn'd perforce away,
	And I saw a boat appear.
	The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
	I heard them coming fast:
	Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
	The dead men could not blast.
	I saw a third—I heard his voice:
	It is the Hermit good!
	He singeth loud his godly hymns
	That he makes in the wood.
	He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
	The Albatross's blood.
	PART VII
The Hermit of the Wood.	'This Hermit good lives in that wood
	Which slopes down to the sea.
	How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
	He loves to talk with marineres
	That come from a far countree.
	He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
	He hath a cushion plump:
	It is the moss that wholly hides
	The rotted old oak-stump.
	The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk,
	"Why, this is strange, I trow!
	Where are those lights so many and fair,
	That signal made but now?"
Approacheth the ship with wonder.	"Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said—
	"And they answer'd not our cheer!
	The planks looked warp'd! and see those sails,
	How thin they are and sere!
	I never saw aught like to them,
	Unless perchance it were
	Brown 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 hath 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 nor spake nor stirr'd;
	The boat came close beneath the ship,
	And straight a sound was heard.
The ship suddenly sinketh.	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.
The ancient Mariner is saved in the Pilot's boat.	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 moved my lips—the Pilot shriek'd
	And fell down in a fit;
	The holy Hermit raised 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 my own countree,
	I stood on the firm land!
	The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,
	And scarcely he could stand.
The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him.	"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!"
	The Hermit cross'd his brow.
	"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say—
	What manner of man art thou?"
	Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd
	With a woful agony,
	Which forced me to begin my tale;
	And then it left me free.
And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land;	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;
	That 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 seeméd 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!
And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.	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 Mariner, 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.

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834

1797-1798, first version published 1798, 1800, 1802, 1805; revised version, including addition of his marginal glosses, published in 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834.

(proofed against E. H. Coleridge's 1927 edition of STC's poems and a ca. 1898 edition of STC's Poetical Works, ``reprinted from the early editions'')


Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834)

An English poet, critic and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as his major prose work Biographia Literaria.

For further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner

Book Selections:

1

Gustave Dore (Author, Illustrator)

› Visit Amazon's Gustave Dore Page

Find all the books, read about the author, and more.

See search results for this author

Are you an author? Learn about Author Central

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Author), Gustave Dore (Author, Illustrator), Martin Gardner (Author, Introduction) - http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Ancient-Mariner-Rime/dp/1591021251/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306335127&sr=1-1#

2

http://www.amazon.com/Rime-Ancient-Mariner-Samuel-Coleridge/dp/0785823409/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306334984&sr=1-4

* * * * * * * * * * *

A Note from R. E. Slater

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner quickly became my favorite poem when first discovering it in my youth, so that when attending college much later I decided to write an abridged version of this poem with my own coloration's and themes but left untitled. And as I did, I would emboss it with the same temperament and strong allusions to the sea that Coleridge uses in his Rime while also including several of the more prominent verses as homage to this vivid writer's expressions. Thereafter it sat incomplete for 30 years until I decided to include within its poetic structure nods to Henry Dana's novel, Two Years before the Mast,  and Felicia Heman's poem, Casabianca, and also to James Joyce's Ulysses, again using my own voice and allusions. Then could it be completed over a several month period into a final state of readiness in January 2009 along with a newly crafted title The Seafarers.

From this sprung several other poems on the sea including an adventure poem this time as an ode-tribute to the ancient sailors and legends of Greece utilizing their own myths for my themes and storyline while borrowing the Iliad's style and incorporating proverbial allusions from the Bible. I greatly enjoyed producing this piece and have since produced even more narrative poems borrowing from my own cacophony of mythological figures and external speakers.

Because I am still producing poetic verse and stories, I have committed no time to researching how I might publish my poems (having the very strong preference of not wishing that activity to interfere with my own timeline for writing and creative thinking). Consequently, I have produced only a few works online at my website which I have called my Occasional Poems. They are unlike my other poems but of a sort that I am willing to share as inspiration to the reader.

About a year ago, in the spring of 2011, feeling burned out and requiring a change of writing venue, I then began two websites. This one here, and a theological website to explore contemporary versions of post-modern, post-evangelic Christianity (at one time known as Emergent Theology), going under the name of Relevancy22. It has been a good project to pour myself into and has allowed me to think about life's deeper theo-sophic themes while writing newer poetry that may include some of these more sublime themes. Meanwhile, I am hard at work crafting new poems and editing older ones having completed the rough outlines of several very long stories that I hope to someday share for your thrall and enjoyment. At least that is my hope during these long winter months of duty and self-confinement. Wish me well!

R.E. Slater

January 29, 2012