28. And, when the blinding tears had fallen, I saw That column, and those corpses, and the moon, And felt the poisonous tooth of hunger gnaw My vitals, I rejoiced, as if the boon Of senseless death would be accorded soon;-- _1355 When from that stony gloom a voice arose, Solemn and sweet as when low winds attune The midnight pines; the grate did then unclose, And on that reverend form the moonlight did repose. 29. He struck my chains, and gently spake and smiled; _1360 As they were loosened by that Hermit old, Mine eyes were of their madness half beguiled, To answer those kind looks; he did enfold His giant arms around me, to uphold My wretched frame; my scorched limbs he wound _1365 In linen moist and balmy, and as cold As dew to drooping leaves;--the chain, with sound Like earthquake, through the chasm of that steep stair did bound, 30. As, lifting me, it fell!--What next I heard, Were billows leaping on the harbour-bar, _1370 And the shrill sea-wind, whose breath idly stirred My hair;--I looked abroad, and saw a star Shining beside a sail, and distant far That mountain and its column, the known mark Of those who in the wide deep wandering are, _1375 So that I feared some Spirit, fell and dark, In trance had lain me thus within a fiendish bark. 31. For now indeed, over the salt sea-billow I sailed: yet dared not look upon the shape Of him who ruled the helm, although the pillow _1380 For my light head was hollowed in his lap, And my bare limbs his mantle did enwrap, Fearing it was a fiend: at last, he bent O'er me his aged face; as if to snap Those dreadful thoughts the gentle grandsire bent, _1385 And to my inmost soul his soothing looks he sent. 32. A soft and healing potion to my lips At intervals he raised--now looked on high, To mark if yet the starry giant dips His zone in the dim sea--now cheeringly, _1390 Though he said little, did he speak to me. 'It is a friend beside thee--take good cheer, Poor victim, thou art now at liberty!' I joyed as those a human tone to hear, Who in cells deep and lone have languished many a year. _1395 33. A dim and feeble joy, whose glimpses oft Were quenched in a relapse of wildering dreams; Yet still methought we sailed, until aloft The stars of night grew pallid, and the beams Of morn descended on the ocean-streams, _1400 And still that aged man, so grand and mild, Tended me, even as some sick mother seems To hang in hope over a dying child, Till in the azure East darkness again was piled.