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Title:
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Author: Samuel Taylor Coleridge
First Published in: 1798
an ancient mariner meets three gallants on their way to
a mariage feast, and detains one of them in order to recount
his story. He tells how his ship was drawn towards the South
Pole by a storm. When the ship is surrounded by ice an
albatross flies through the fog and is received with joy
by the crew, but is then, inexplicably, shot by the
mariner. For this act of cruelty a curse falls on the
ship. She is driven north to the Equator and is becalmed
under burning sun in a rotting sea. The albatross is hung
round the neck of the hated mariner. A skeleton ship
approaches, on which Death and Lift-in-Death are playing
dice, and when it vanishes all the crew die except the
mariner. Suddenly, watching the beauty of the watersnakes
in the moonlight, he blesses them—and the albatross
falls from his neck. The ship sails home and the manner
is saved, but for a penance he is condemned to travel
from land to land and to teach by his example love and
reverence for all God's creatures. J. L. Lowes, in The
Road to Xanadu (1927), traces the sources of Coleridge's
story and imagery.
Text file provided by:
Project Gutenberg
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