The tale of Goody Blake and Harry Gill is founded on a well-authenticated fact which happened in Warwickshire. Of the other poems in the collection, it may be proper to say that they are either absolute inventions of the author, or facts which took place within his personal observation or that of his friends. The poem of the Thorn, as the reader will soon discover, is not supposed to be spoken in the author’s own person: the character of the loquacious narrator will sufficiently shew itself in the course of the story. The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere was professedly written in imitation of the _style_, as well as of the spirit of the elder poets; but with a few exceptions, the Author believes that the language adopted in it has been equally intelligible for these three last centuries. The lines entitled Expostulation and Reply, and those which follow, arose out of conversation with a friend who was somewhat unreasonably attached to modern books of moral philosophy. CONTENTS. The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere The Foster-Mother’s Tale Lines left upon a Seat in a Yew-tree which stands near the Lake of Esthwaite The Nightingale, a Conversational Poem The Female Vagrant Goody Blake and Harry Gill Lines written at a small distance from my House, and sent by my little Boy to the Person to whom they are addressed Simon Lee, the old Huntsman Anecdote for Fathers We are seven Lines written in early spring The Thorn The last of the Flock The Dungeon The Mad Mother The Idiot Boy Lines written near Richmond, upon the Thames, at Evening Expostulation and Reply The Tables turned; an Evening Scene, on the same subject Old Man travelling The Complaint of a forsaken Indian Woman The Convict Lines written a few miles above Tintern Abbey THE RIME OF THE ANCYENT MARINERE, IN SEVEN PARTS. ARGUMENT. How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by Storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country. I. It is an ancyent Marinere, And he stoppeth one of three: “By thy long grey beard and thy glittering eye “Now wherefore stoppest me? “The Bridegroom’s doors are open’d wide “And I am next of kin; “The Guests are met, the Feast is set,-- “May’st hear the merry din.-- But still he holds the wedding-guest-- There was a Ship, quoth he-- “Nay, if thou’st got a laughsome tale, “Marinere! come with me.” He holds him with his skinny hand, Quoth he, there was a Ship-- “Now get thee hence, thou grey-beard Loon! “Or my Staff shall make thee skip.” He holds him with his glittering eye-- The wedding guest stood still And listens like a three year’s child; The Marinere hath his will.