SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

IN SEVEN PARTS

Facile credo, plures esse Naturas invisibiles quam visibiles in rerum universitate. Sed horum omnium familiam quis nobis enarrabit? et gradus et cognationes et discrimina et singulorum munera ? Quid agunt? quae loca habitant? Harum rerum notitiam semper ambivit ingenium humanum, nunquam attigit. Juvat, interea, non diffiteor, quandoque in animo, tanquam in tabula, majoris et melioris mundi imaginem contemplari: ne mens assuefacta hodiernae vitae minutiis se contrahat nimis, et tota subsidat in pusillas cogitationes. Sed veritati interea invigilandum est, modusque servandus, ut certa ab incertis, diem a nocte, distinguamus.-T. BURNET, Archaeol. Phil. p. 68.

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. [1798.]

An ancient Mariner

meeteth three Gallants bidden to a wed

ding-feast, and detaineth one.

The weddingguest is spellbound by the eye of the old

PART THE FIRST

IT is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

By thy long grey beard and glittering eyc, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me ?

'The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin ;

The guests are met, the feast is set:
May'st hear the merry din.'

He holds him with his skinny hand,

"There was a ship,' quoth he.

Hold off! unhand me, greybeard loon!'
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye-
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:
The Mariner hath his will.

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The sun came up upon the left,

Out of the sea came he!

And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

Higher and higher every day,

Till over the mast at noon

The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;

Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner.

And now the Storm-blast came, and he

With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe,
And forward bends his head,

The ship driven by a storm toward the South Pole.

The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

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And now there came both mist and snow
And it grew wondrous cold:

And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

And through the drifts the snowy clifts
Did send a dismal sheen :

Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken-
The ice was all between.

The land of ice, and of fearful sounds, where no living thing was to be seen.

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

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It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an Albatross :
Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through!

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner's hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;

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Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine.

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus !— 80
Why look'st thou so ?'-With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.

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 accomplices in the crime.

PART THE SECOND

The Sun now rose upon the right:

Out of the sea came he,

Still hid in mist, and on the left

Went down into the sea.

And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,

Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner's hollo!

And I had done an hellish thing,

And it would work 'em woe:

For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow.

Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow !

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:

Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.

'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.

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The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free;

We were the first that ever burst

Into that silent sea.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,

'Twas sad as sad could be;

And we did speak only to break

The silence of the sea!

All in a hot and copper sky,

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The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean and sails northward,

even till it reaches the Line.

The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.

The bloody Sun, at noon,

Right up above the mast did stand,

No bigger than the Moon.

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship

Upon a painted ocean.

Water, water, everywhere,

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, everywhere,

Nor any drop to drink,

The very deep did rot: O Christ!

That ever this should be!

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

About, about, in reel and rout
The death-fires danced at night;
The water, like a witch's oils,
Burnt green, and blue and white.

And some in dreams assured were
Of the spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

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.

And every tongue, through utter drought,

Was withered at the root;

We could not speak, no more than if

We had been choked with soot.

Ah! well-a-day! what evil looks

Had I from old and young!

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung.

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The shipmates,

in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on

the ancient Mariner: in sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck,

The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.

At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he freeth 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 seemeth him
but the skele-
ton of a ship.
And its ribs
are seen as bars
on the face of

the setting
Sun.

PART THE THIRD

There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye,
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.

A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!

And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,

It plunged and tacked and veered.

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With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could not laugh nor wail;

Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,

And cried, A sail! a sail !

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With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:

Gramercy! they for joy did grin,

And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

See! See! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;

Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

The western wave was all aflame.
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright Sun;

When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

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And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven's Mother send us grace!)

As if through a dungeon-grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!

Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres!

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