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 super-natural 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—
