It plunged and tacked and veered. 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 sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail! With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy!7 they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.
using the term to mean water -spout).
.
THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER / 435
And horror folio U'S.
For can it be a ship See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more! that conies onward Hither to work us weal;8
without wind or tide?
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies 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.
It seemcth him but
And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
the skeleton of a
ship. (Heaven's Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
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?9
And its ribs are seen
Are those her ribs through which the Sun
as bars on the face of
the setting Sun. The Did peer, as through a grate?
specter-woman and il
Ands that Woman al her crew?
her death-mate, and
no other on board Is that a Death? and are there two?
the skeleton-ship.
Is Death that woman's mate? Like vessel, like Her lips were red, her looks were free,
cretv!
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.
Death and Life-in-
The naked hulk1 alongside came,
death have diced for
