Nature and Elements

The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper o’er the sea Off shot the specter bark.

The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper o’er the sea Off shot the specter bark.

The sun’s rim dips, the stars rush out: At one stride comes the dark; With far-heard whisper o’er the sea Off shot the specter bark.

About, about, in reel and rout The death fires danced at night.

The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.

Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew, The furrow followed free; We were the first that ever burst Into that silent sea.

As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

“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!

And now there came both mist and snow, And it grew wondrous cold: And ice, mast-high, came floating by, As green as emerald.

Oh, Brignal banks are wild and fair, And Greta woods are green, And you may gather garlands there Would grace a summer queen.

In listening mood she seemed to stand, The guardian Naiad of the strand.

The stag at eve had drunk his fill, Where danced the moon on Monan’s rill, And deep his midnight lair had made In lone Glenartney’s hazel shade.

O Caledonia! stern and wild, Meet nurse for a poetic child! Land of brown heath and shaggy wood; Land of the mountain and the flood!

November’s sky is chill and drear, November’s leaf is red and sear.

Small service is true service while it lasts: Of humblest friends, bright creature! scorn not one: The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, Protects the lingering dewdrop from the sun.

An ampler ether, a diviner air.

Two voices are there: one is of the sea, 6 One of the mountains; each a mighty voice.

A pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils.

Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way.