Lyrical Ballads William Wordsworth (best free novels txt) 📖

the shadow of the moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned 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 turned 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.

VII

“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 Mariners
That come from a far countrée.

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 ner’d: I heard them talk,
‘Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair
That signal made but now?’

‘Strange, by my faith!’ the Hermit said⁠—
‘And they answered not our cheer.
The planks look warped, and see those sails
How 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-feared.’⁠—‘Push on, push on!’
Said the Hermit cheerily.

The Boat came closer to the Ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred:
The Boat came close beneath the Ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
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 shrieked
And fell down in a fit.
The Holy Hermit raised his eyes
And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed 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 stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

‘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;
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 Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone; and now the wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom’s door.

He went, like one that hath been stunned
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn.

Lines Written a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour5

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.6⁠—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
Which on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which, at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
Among the woods and copses, nor disturb
The wild green landscape. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild; these pastoral farms
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees,
With some uncertain notice, as might seem,
Of vagrant Dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit’s cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.

Though absent