Emotions and Feelings

Forth from his dark and lonely hiding place (Portentous sight!) the owlet Atheism, Sailing on obscene wings athwart the noon, Drops his blue-fringèd lids, and holds them close, And hooting at the glorious sun in Heaven, Cries out, “Where is it?”

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan A stately pleasure dome decree: Where Alph, the sacred river, ran Through caverns measureless to man Down to a sunless sea. So twice five miles of fertile ground With walls and towers were girdled round.

Alas! they had been friends in youth; But whispering tongues can poison truth; And constancy lives in realms above; And life is thorny; and youth is vain; And to be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain.

A sight to dream of, not to tell!

O Wedding Guest! This soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely ’twas, that God himself Scarce seemèd there to be.

O Wedding Guest! This soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely ’twas, that God himself Scarce seemèd there to be.

“Ha! ha!” quoth he, “full plain I see, The Devil knows how to row.”

Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.

O happy living things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gushed from my heart, And I blessed them unaware.

Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole.

I fear thee, ancient Mariner! I fear thy skinny hand! And thou art long, and lank, and brown, As is the ribbed sea-sand. 1

Alone, alone, all, all alone; Alone on a wide, wide sea.

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye.

Each turned his face with a ghastly pang, And cursed me with his eye.

We listened and looked sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My lifeblood seemed to sip.

We listened and looked sideways up! Fear at my heart, as at a cup, My lifeblood seemed to sip.

“The game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!” Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail!

I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, And cried, A sail! a sail!

“God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus!— Why look’st thou so?”—“With my crossbow I shot the Albatross.”

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!

The guests are met, the feast is set: May’st hear the merry din.

Oh, poverty parts good company.

O the one life within us and abroad, Which meets all motion and becomes its soul, A light in sound, a sound-like power in light, Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere— Methinks, it should have been impossible Not to love all things in a world so filled.