The rime of the ancient mariner

The rime of an ancient mariner The rime of the ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge An ancient mariner meets three Gallants bidding to a wedding-feast, and detains one. The Wedding-Guest is spellbound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale. The Mariner tells how the ship sailed south-ward whit a good wind and fire weather, till it reached the line. The Wedding-Guest hears the bridal music; but the mariner continued his tale. The ship driven by a storm towards the south pole. The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be seen. Till a great sea-bird, call the Albatross came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality. And lo! The Albatross prevents a bird of good omen, and follows the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice. The ancient mariner inhospitably kills the pious bird of good omen. His shipmates cry out against the ancient mariner, for killing the bird of good luck. But when the fog cleared off, They justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplice in the crime. The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till reaches the Line. The ship hat been suddenly becalmed. And the Albatross begins to be avenged. A spirit had followed them; one of the invisibles inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more. The shipmates, in their some distress, would fain through the whole guilt on the ancient mariner: in sign whereof guilt they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck. The ancient Mariner beholds a sign in the element afar off. At its nearer approach, it seems him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he frees his speech from the bonds of thirst. A flash of joy; And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide? It seems him but the skeleton of a ship. And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the sitting Sun. The Spectre-Woman and her Death mate, and no other on board the skeleton ship. Like vessel, like crew! Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) wins the ancient Mariner. No twilight within the courts of the Sun. At the rising of the Moon, One after another, His shipmates drop down dead. But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner. The Wedding-Guest fears that a Spirit is talking to him; But the ancient Mariner assures him of his bodily life, and proceeds to relate his horrible penance. He despises the creatures of the calm, And envies that they should live, and so many lie dead. But the curse lives from him in the eye of the dead men. In his loneliness and fixedness he yearns towards the journeying Moon, ant the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them and Continua »