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 cracked and growled, and roared and howled, Like noises in a swound!
At length did cross an Albatross,-- Through the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed 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 steered us through!
But now, while the sun poured down hotter and still hotter rays upon the unaccustomed back of Coleridge, he heard the hearty voice of Tom Poole, summoning him to the bark-built arbour under the big elm-trees. A jug of egg-flip and a delightful chat were awaiting him: the bees were humming round in the "lime-tree bower" of the garden: and the deep, vibrating voice of the poet, roused to unwonted exhilaration, was presently moved to declaim one of his own magnificent imitations from Schiller, _The Visit of the Gods_. His recitation rose like a chant in its music and sonority.
Never, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Never alone: Scarce had I welcomed the Sorrow-beguiler, Iacchus! but in came Boy Cupid the Smiler; Lo! Phoebus the Glorious descends from his Throne! They advance, they float in, the Olympians all! With Divinities fills my Terrestrial Hall!
How shall I yield you Due entertainment, Celestial Quire? Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joyance, That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! Ha! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul! O give me the Nectar! O fill me the Bowl!
[Illustration: THE ALBATROSS BREAKS THE ICE-SPELL.
"At length did cross an Albatross,-- Through the fog it came; As if it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God's name."
"Indeed, one might easily forget all mundane matters upon a day like this," mused the poet as he became rested and refreshed. "It is not a day for doing, Poole,--for digging and forking and stooping,--it was meant for dreaming, for endless reveries of eternal beauty."
"That is not likely ever to be my lot," said the matter-of-fact Poole, "Too much to see after."