noon
Far away they saw the house , a remote something , scarce existent in the dreaming night , the gracious-ghastly poem , and the mingling , harmonizing moon . It was much too far away to give them an anxious thought , and for long it seemed , like death , to be coming no nearer ; but they were moving toward it all the time , and it was even growing a move insistent fact . Thus they walked at once in the two blended worlds of the moonlight and the tale , while Richard half-chanted the music-speech of the most musical of poets , telling of the roaring wind that the mariner did not feel , of the flags of electric light , of the dances of the wan stars , of the sighing of the sails , of the star-dogged moon , and the torrent-like falls of the lightning down the mountainous cloud -- for so Barbara , who had seen two or three tropical thunder-storms , explained to Richard the lightning which `` fell with never a jag , A river steep and wide ; '' -- until that groan arose from the dead men , and the bodies heaved themselves up on their feet , and began to work the ropes , and worked on till sunrise , and the mariner knew that not the old souls but angels had entered into them , by their gathering about the mast , and sending such a strange lovely hymn through their dead throats up to the sun . When Richard repeated the stanza -- `` It ceased ; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon , A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June , That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune ; '' Barbara uttered a prolonged `` Oh ! '' and again was silent , listening to the talk of the elemental spirits , feeling the very wind of home that blew on the mariner , seeing the lighthouse , and the hill , and the weathercock on the church-spire , and the white bay , and the shining seraphs with the crimson shadows , and the sinking ship , and the hermit that made the mariner tell his story as he was telling it now . But when Richard came to the words -- `` He prayeth well , who loveth well Both man and bird and beast . He prayeth best , who loveth best All things both great and small , For the dear God who loveth us , He made and loveth all , '' she clapped her hands together ; and when he ended them , she cried out -- `` I was sure of it !