how tight the listeners
had held their breath to hear him; and when he swelled with song again,
and poured with all his soul the green meadows, the quiet brooks, the
honey clover, and the English spring, the rugged mouths opened and so
stayed, and the shaggy lips trembled, and more than one drop trickled
from fierce unbridled hearts down bronzed and rugged cheeks.

_Dulce domum!_

And these shaggy men, full of oaths and strife and cupidity, had once
been white-headed boys, and had strolled about the English fields with
little sisters and little brothers, and seen the lark rise, and heard
him sing this very song. The little playmates lay in the churchyard,
and they were full of oaths and drink and lusts and remorses,--but no
note was changed in this immortal song. And so for a moment or two,
years of vice rolled away like a dark cloud from the memory, and the
past shone out in the song-shine: they came back, bright as the immortal
notes that lighted them, those faded pictures and those fleeted days;
the cottage, the old mother's tears when he left her without one grain
of sorrow; the village church and its simple chimes; the clover field
hard by in which he lay and gambolled, while the lark praised God
overhead; the chubby playmates that never grew to be wicked, the sweet
hours of youth--and innocence--and home.

Charles Reade: "It is Never Too Late to Mend."

THE ANCIENT MARINER

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
"By thy long gray beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand,
"There was a ship," quoth he.
"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard, loon!"
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye--
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner:

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.

The Sun came up upon the left,
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into