Rima Pelaut

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER: TEXT OF THE POEM

Part I

It is an ancient mariner
And he stoppeth one of three.
– "By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, 
Now wherefore stoppest thou me?

The bridegroom's doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst hear the merry din."

He holds him with his skinny hand, 
"There was a ship," quoth he.
"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!" 
Eftsoons his hand dropped 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.

The wedding-guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed mariner.

"The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared, 
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill, 
Below the lighthouse top.

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 
Was tyrannous and strong; 
He struck with his o'ertaking wings, 
And chased us south along.

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

Listen, stranger! 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 ice was here, the ice was there, 
The ice was all around:
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 mariners' hollo!

In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moon-shine."

"God save thee, ancient mariner! 
From the fiends, that plague thee thus! – 
Why lookst thou so?" – "With my crossbow 
I shot the albatross.

Part II

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 mariners' 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 an angel's 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.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

Down dropped the breeze, the sails dropped 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,
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 deeps 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.

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! wel-a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the albatross
About my neck was hung.

Part III

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.

With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
We could nor laugh nor wail;
Through utter drouth all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

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.

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?

Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came, 
And the twain were casting dice; 
'The game is done! I've won! I've won!' 
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre bark.

We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My lifeblood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dews did drip – 
Till clomb above the eastern bar
The horned moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

One after one, by the star-dogged moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

Their souls did from their bodies fly – 
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whizz of my crossbow!"

Part IV

"I fear thee, ancient mariner! 
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank, and brown, 
As is the ribbed sea-sand.

I fear thee and thy glittering eye, 
And thy skinny hand, so brown." – 
"Fear not, fear not, thou wedding-guest! 
This body dropped not down.

Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gushed,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close,
Till the balls like pulses beat;
For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man's eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

The moving moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside – 

Her beams bemocked the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
The charmed water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

O happy living things! No tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.

The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

Part V

Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary-Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven,
That slid into my soul.

The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light – almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.

And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

The upper air bursts into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.

And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge;
And the rain poured down from one black cloud;
The moon was at its edge.

The thick black cloud was cleft, and still 
The moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning fell with never a jag, 
A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steered, the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up-blew;
The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools – 
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said nought to me."

"I fear thee, ancient mariner!" 
"Be calm, thou wedding-guest! 
'Twas not those souls that fled in pain, 
Which to their corses came again, 
But a troop of spirits blessed.

For when it dawned – they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

Around, around, flew each sweet sound, 
Then darted to the sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again, 
Now mixed, now one by one.

Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
I heard the skylark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

And now 'twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel's song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

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.

Till noon we silently sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.

The sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she 'gan stir,
With a short uneasy motion – 
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short uneasy motion.

Then like a pawing horse let go, 
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head, 
And I fell down in a swound.

How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard and in my soul discerned
Two voices in the air.

'Is it he?' quoth one, 'Is this the man? 
By him who died on cross, 
With his cruel bow he laid full low 
The harmless albatross.

The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.'

The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honeydew:
Quoth he, 'The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.'

Part VI

FIRST VOICE

'But tell me, tell me! speak again, 
Thy soft response renewing – 
What makes that ship drive on so fast? 
What is the ocean doing?'

SECOND VOICE

'Still as a slave before his lord, 
The ocean hath no blast; 
His great bright eye most silently 
Up to the moon is cast – 

If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously 
She looketh down on him.'

FIRST VOICE

'But why drives on that ship so fast, 
Without or wave or wind?'

SECOND VOICE

'The air is cut away before,
And closes from behind.

Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the mariner's trance is abated.'

I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
'Twas night, calm night, the moon was high;
The dead men stood together.

All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the moon did glitter.

The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

And now this spell was snapped: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen – 

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend 
Doth close behind him tread.

But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring – 
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze – 
On me alone it blew.

O dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own country?

We drifted o'er the harbour bar,
And I with sobs did pray – 
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway!

The harbour bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the moon.

The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

And the bay was white with silent light,
Till rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck – 
O Christ! what saw I there!

Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!
A man all light, a seraph man,
On every corse there stood.

This seraph band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land,
Each one a lovely light;

This seraph band, each waved his hand,
No voice did they impart – 
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.

But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the pilot's cheer;
My head was turned perforce away
And I saw a boat appear.

The pilot and the pilot's boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.

I saw a third – I heard his voice:
It is the hermit good!
He singeth loud his godly hymns
That he makes in the wood.
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
The albatross's blood.

Part VII

This hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with mariners 
That come from a far country.

He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve – 
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak stump.

The skiff boat neared: I heard them talk, 
'Why, this is strange, I trow! 
Where are those lights so many and fair, 
That signal made but now?'

'Strange, by my faith!' the hermit said – 
'And they answered not our cheer! 
The planks look warped! and see those sails, 
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them, 
Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf's young.'

'Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look,' 
The pilot made reply, 
'I am a-feared' – 'Push on, push on!' 
Said the hermit cheerily.

The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the pilot's boat.

Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

I moved my lips – the pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;
The holy hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.

I took the oars: the pilot's boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
'Ha! ha!' quoth he, 'full plain I see,
The devil knows how to row.'

And now, all in my own country,
I stood on the firm land!
The hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

'Oh shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!' 
The hermit crossed his brow. 
'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say – 
What manner of man art thou?'

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told, 
This heart within me burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bridemaids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

O wedding-guest! This soul hath been
Alone on a wide wide sea:
So lonely 'twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

Oh sweeter than the marriage feast, 
'Tis sweeter far to me, 
To walk together to the kirk 
With a goodly company! – 

To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends
And youths and maidens gay!

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou wedding-guest!
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."

The mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.

SUMMARY

Stanzas 1-5

• Imagine that this poem starts out like the Vince Vaughn-Owen Wilson buddy comedy Wedding Crashers. Three scruffy-looking bachelors are getting ready to go into this wedding, hoping to party, meet some girls, and generally have a good time. They're laughing and swaggering as they approach the door to the party.
• But standing outside the door you've got this old bearded mariner who suddenly grabs one of the guys. The other two guys enter the wedding feast, and they're like, "See ya in there."
• The Mariner starts to tell a story as if it were programmed into his brain, and the Wedding Guest is understandably impatient, but also kind of rude. He says something like, "Gross. You're old and crazy. Let me go."
• The Mariner immediately ("eftsoons") lets go of the guest, but the magnetic draw of his eyes is even more powerful than his grip.
• The Wedding Guest has no hope of escape. He sits on a rock and listens like a little boy ("three-years' child") at story time. It's going to be a long night.

Stanzas 6-10

• The Mariner starts his story:
• When the Mariner's ship left port, everyone was in a good mood. They sailed out and watched the church ("kirk"), the hill, and finally, the town lighthouse disappear from sight as the ship "dropped" below the horizon.
• Days went by, and the sun rose on the "left" and set on the "right." Every day the sun seemed to rise "higher," signaling that they were approaching the equator. Finally the sun was directly over the ship's mast at noon, meaning they had reached the equator.
• Suddenly the Wedding Guest has second thoughts as he realizes just how long this story is going to be.
• They started playing the music! The bride is led to the dance hall by the entertainers ("merry minstrelsy")! The wine! The women! He's missing out!
• The guest "beats his breast" in a sign of distress.
• But, as we said, there's something about that mariner that gives him power over the Wedding Guest. Something about his eyes…

Stanzas 11-15

• The Mariner continues his story:
• Near the equator, a storm strikes. The storm is compared to a huge flying creature that chases the ship southward. It drives them all the way down to the Arctic, where they start to see huge icebergs that look green in the clear water.
• The sailors find themselves in the middle of an ice field with ice "here," "there," everywhere! Obviously there are no people or animals in sight. The giant icebergs making loud cracking, groaning sounds, like noises you might hear in a trance ("swound").
• At this point, everyone on the boat is convinced that they're done for.

Stanzas 16-20

• Everyone is happy to see another living thing fly past the ship: an albatross! You know, the bird with huge, white wings that can fly long distances across the ocean? Yeah, that one.
• The albatross seems particularly friendly, almost as if it were a person. And not just a person, but a good "Christian soul." Somehow the bird seems related to God and peace.
• The sailors feed the bird, and naturally it sticks around. Soon enough, the ice that had trapped them splits wide enough apart for the ship to sail through.
• More good things happen to the ship.
• A south wind that will take them back up north again starts to blow. The albatross continues to follow the boat in good fortune, and everyone treats it like their pet.
• The albatross follows them around for nine nights, or "vespers." It's still pretty foggy outside, and the moon glows through the fog at night.
• Then people start to notice that the Mariner has this sickly look on his face. They try to cheer up him: "What's wrong, man? Don't let the fiends get you down!"
• And the mariner essentially says, "Remember that albatross that seemed so mysteriously connected to all our good fortune?" Gulp. Uh-huh? "Well, I kind of took my crossbow and shot it." YOU DIDWHAT?!

Stanzas 21-25

• At least time doesn't stop after he kills the albatross. The sun keeps rising and setting just as before, and the weather remains misty. Since the sailors are now traveling north instead of south, the sun rises on the right and sets on the left, instead of the other way around, as in Part I, Stanza 6.
• But, leave not doubt, that bird is as dead as a doornail. The sailors' favorite pet is gone. If you have ever read any other literature about sailors, like Melville's Moby-Dick, you might know that they take their good luck charms very seriously.
• The sailors are convinced that the bird brought them the good winds, and they all agree ("averred") that the Mariner has done a bad, bad thing.
• But then the mist goes away, and the sailors change their minds. Instead of bringing the good winds (hooray!), the sailors decide that the bird was responsible for the fog that was making it so hard to see (boo!). They now blame the bird for bad luck. Those fickle sailors.
• Everything is going along quite well for the crew. They carve the mounds or "furrows" of the waves with the wind at their back. They make their way into uncharted territory.

Stanzas 26-30

• One tip for reading this poem: conditions change really fast. It only took a stanza for the sailors to decide that the albatross was really a bad luck charm instead of a good one. Here, it only takes a stanza for the weather to turn from delightful to dreadful.
• In short, they lose the good breeze at their backs, and without a breeze to fill the sails, the ship can't move. Suddenly, the "silence" of the uncharted waters sounds very ominous.
• The sun is small and "blood-red": it looks very far away. The sky has a strange fiery color, but their main problem is a lack of water. If they don't find some kind of land (or, heck, ice), they will all die of thirst.
• There's no wind. Literally. Not even a tiny gust. The ocean looks like glass, and the scene is so motionless that it could be a painting.
• Without any water, even the "boards" – the wood planks of the ship – start to dry up and "shrink." So…thirsty!
• Um, so, sailors, what was that you were saying about being glad that the albatross was dead?

Stanzas 31-34

• When the world gets dry, the ocean starts to "rot" from the dryness. Think of a pond that is drying up, and how it turns brackish (extra-salty) and starts growing nasty algae. The ocean around the ship is undergoing a similar transformation. Its surface turns "slimy" and gross, slimy creatures start to appear.
• These creatures aren't fish: they have "legs." Are they walking on the water, or what? Hard to tell what's going on here, but the poem is beginning to turn strange.
• Crazy, disturbing lights start to appear at night, and the water "burns" green, blue, and white. If you wanted to be scientific about it, you might guess that the Mariner is seeing the phenomenon of "phosphorescence." Some kinds of algae and tiny animals can literally "glow" in the water in certain times of year.
• But Coleridge isn't being scientific, he's being supernatural. Some of the sailors start to dream that a spirit deep under the ocean has been following the ship ever since they left the Arctic. Needless to say, it's not a happy, fuzzy spirit.
• The crew becomes so thirsty that they stop producing saliva and cannot talk. But they can still give the stink-eye to the Mariner. "This is all your fault."
• In one of the poem's most famous images, they hang the dead albatross around his neck.
• Side note: First, when did they pick up the albatross? We never heard about that one. Second, that albatross must really stink to high heavens.

Stanzas 35-40

• They have spent a long time drifting on the ocean with no wind or water, and everyone is sick of it. Then one day, the Mariner sees something coming from the west; as in, the opposite direction as the Mariner's sweet home England.
• He can't decide whether the thing is a small "speck" or a more spread-out "mist." The shape starts to come into focus and he became aware ("wist") of what looked like. It moves around in zigzag fashion as if escaping supernatural forces. Hey, join the club.
• The speaker finally realizes what it is, and he wants to shout, but his mouth is too dry. His lips are sunburned and caked with dried blood. When you're as talkative as the Mariner, you know its trouble when you're so dehydrated that you can't speak.
• Fortunately, he has a solution that would make the guy from theSurvivor Man TV show proud. He bites his arm to wet his lips with his own blood, just enough so that he can shout
• He shouts that he sees a sail.
• His crewmates are so happy that they shout "gramercy!" meaning, "Thank heavens!"
• The ship is coming their way. Maybe their crew will have water.

Stanzas 41-45

• The sun is setting in the west, and the ship is approaching from the west. Here Coleridge provides a complicated image to illustrate how the ship is really – get ready for it – a Ghost Ship!
• Here's the image: the mysterious ship sails in front of the setting sun, and rather than blocking out part of the sun completely, it just looks like the sun has bars in front of it. In other words, the ship looks like a skeleton.
• The ship's sails aren't normal sails – you know, the kind that can hold wind. Instead, they look like tattered spider webs, or "gossamers." Its hull looks like ribs. Worst of all, he can now see that the crew consists of only two people: Death and Life-in-Death.
• Well, shoot.
• We imagine death as the hooded guy with the sickle, or something like that, while Life-in-Death is a woman who appears relatively normal except for her pale, diseased-looking skin.

Stanzas 46-51

• When the ship approaches, Death and Life-in-Death are playing a game. (Please be Parcheesi, please be Parcheesi.) They are playing dice (no!) to decide who will gain the upper hand.
• We have the feeling that the fate of the Mariner and his friends rests on this dice game.
• We have a winner: Life-in-Death! She's just won power over a bunch of raggedy, thirsty sailors. She's probably wishing she had gone onThe Price is Right instead – that dinette set is looking pretty good right about now.
• But nothing happens…yet.
• Night falls, and the mysterious Ghost Ship ("spectre bark") sails away.
• Everyone is waiting to see what will happen. Coleridge plays the scene like a suspense movie, complete with dew going drip-drip from the sails. The partial moon rises, and it looks like a "horn," or, if you prefer, a smiley face. One of the "horns" of the moon has a star next to it. This seems to be a bad sign, for some reason.
• Suddenly, everyone on the ship begins to die. They don't make a fuss but kind of just slump over. However, they do make sure to curse the Mariner with their eyes before they go.
• There are 200 men on the boat besides the Mariner, and they all die. Their souls escape their dead bodies and shoot past the Mariner like the crossbow with which he shot the Albatross.

Stanzas 52-55

• OK, so Coleridge isn't super-obvious about it, but at this point the Wedding Guest (remember him?) interrupts the story to make another futile attempt at escape.
• After the Mariner tells this ghost story, the Wedding Guest notices that the Mariner looks a bit like a ghost himself: skinny, bony, with eerily bright eyes. Yup, all ghost-like features. Putting two and two together, the Wedding Guest freaks out.
• But the Mariner reassures him that he's no ghost. He was the only one on the ship who didn't die. He doesn't exactly give the Wedding Guest a lot of comfort, but just goes on with his story.
• The Mariner's story continues:
• So now he's by himself on this ship with a lot of dead people, all of whom have just cursed him. He wishes that the spirit of some dead saint would take pity on him.
• At least the slimy creatures are still there. He thinks what a shame it is that all these nice men have died, and he and the slimy things are still living.

Stanzas 56-60

• He tries to say a prayer to save his soul, but then he hears an evil voice like a little devil on his shoulder that saps his enthusiasm for praying.
• He closes his eyes to avoid looking at all the miserable sights around him. He has noticed that the bodies of all the dead sailors don't rot. Also, they're still cursing him with their looks. Let it go, guys.
• Their curses are worse than the curse of a poor little orphan. And that's really bad, because an orphan could drag an angel down to Hell. For a full week, the eyes of the dead sailors emanate this terrible curse.

Stanzas 61-66

• At night, the moon rises again, and the moonlight falls on the ship like frost.
• He still sees all kinds of strange bright colors, like a red on the water, and a bright, "elfish" white light in the trail of the water snakes.
• Wait, when were there water snakes? Oh, yeah, the "slimy things." Wait, we thought those had legs. OK, just go with it.
• He looks at the water snakes swimming in the shadow of his ship. It's like a creepy version of Dr. Seuss: One Snake, Two Snake, Red Snake, Blue Snake. They are all different colors, and they make crazy phosphorescent patterns in the water.
• He kind of gets excited watching the snakes. Look at the colors! He realizes that these hideous snakes are kind of beautiful. Without knowing it, he blesses the wriggly little creatures in his heart.
• This blessing for fellow creatures is all it takes to remove the horrible curse that the Mariner gained from killing the albatross. He has been wearing that darn albatross around his neck this whole time, but suddenly it falls off and sinks to the bottom of the ocean.
• He can pray again without being stopped by evil whispers. As Martha Stewart would say, "It's a good thing."

Stanzas 67-69

• Not only can he pray again, but he can also sleep again. Exhausted from all the endless cursing and dying of thirst, he falls asleep. He credits Mary, the mother of Christ, for this sleep.
• Naturally, he dreams about drinking water. But his dream actually comes true: it rains when he wakes up. Sailors are really good at collecting rainwater from their sails and in buckets, and the Mariner has all the water he needs.
• (In reality, a severely dehydrated person like that would probably die from drinking too much water too fast, but we won't quibble with Coleridge on this one.)
• He feels as light as if he had died and was now a ghost. But a happy ghost.

Stanzas 71-75

• Now that the curse has been lifted, more good news follows. He hears a loud wind in the distance. The sound of the wind rattles the dried out ("sere") sails. But it's important to remember that the wind hasn't reached the ship yet.
• He sees new activity in the sky. More stars return, and he sees things he calls "fire-flags." We have to think he's either talking about weird lightning flashes – but without clouds to block the stars – or the Aurora (in this case, the Southern Lights).
• He sees a black cloud, the partial moon and lightning falling in perfectly vertical fashion. We're not sure exactly what's going on, except that these are wild descriptions.

Stanzas 76-80

• OK, so what was the point of the wind if it "never reached the ship"? The wind was supposed make the ship sail again, but it does no good at a distance. Except if you have a mysterious force moving your ship: score!
• Like a scene from Frankenstein, the dead sailors rise up amid the thunder and lightning. They look like zombies and don't say a word. But they all do the jobs they are supposed to do, helping to sail the ship.
• If you're starting to suspect that the movie Pirates of the Caribbeanborrowed a lot of material from Coleridge, we're right there with you.
• The Mariner goes with the flow, and he basically says, "I don't care if these guys are just bodies with no souls, as long as we get moving again, I'll help out."
• The Wedding Guest interrupts the story again. He's not the bravest Wedding Guest we've ever heard of. He's afraid that the Mariner is now telling a zombie story.
• The Mariner reassures the frightened Wedding Guest that the bodies of the sailors were possessed not by their original owners, but by a bunch of good spirits, like angels. Oh, that helps.
• The Mariner continues his story.
• He knew that spirits were angels because, when dawn comes, they all escape from the bodies and break out into song.

Stanzas 81-85

• The spirits float around the ship and sing like birds. They are like an entire symphony of voices. They stop singing after dawn, but the sails continue to make a pleasant sound like a stream following through a forest.
• The ship keeps moving, but there's no wind. What gives? The Mariner is sticking with his theory that someone or something is moving the boat from underneath the ocean.

Stanzas 86-92

• The Mariner explains his theory in more detail. The same spirit "nine fathoms deep" that earlier caused such problems near the Arctic has now decided to play nice and guide the ship up to the equator. At noon the sun is again directly above the mast, which means that we're back at the equator.
• The ship stops and remains motionless for a bit. Then, all of a sudden, the ship takes off as if someone has just released a really fast horse or, to use a more modern metaphor, as if someone has put the gas pedal to the floor.
• The force of this movement knocks out the Mariner, and he loses consciousness. While in a stupor, he hears two mysterious voices talking. We're back in supernatural territory, here.
• One of the voices wants to know if the Mariner is the guy who shot the nice albatross. He sounds judgmental.
• The other voice sounds gentler and says that the Mariner has done a lot of penance for his mistake, and he'll do more penance in the future.
• We've got a bit of a good cop/bad cop routine here.

Stanzas 93-98

• The two voices continue their dialogue, and Coleridge helps us figure out who is talking by adding stage directions: "First Voice" and "Second Voice."
• The first voice is curious and the second voice is knowledgeable.
• The first voice asks how the ocean has made the ship move, and the second voice replies that the ocean is just following orders from the moon, personified as a woman. The moon is happy with the Mariner, but she wasn't before.
• The first voice isn't satisfied and wants to know how the ship is moving so fast. The second voice explains that the air is creating a vacuum in front of the ship and then pushing it forward from the behind. Physics students, we'll leave this one to you.
• The second voice urges the ship to move faster. They have a lot of ground to cover before the Mariner wakes up.

Stanzas 99-105

• The Mariner awakes from his trance and finds all the dead sailors still hanging around on the ship's deck. He thinks that a slaughterhouse would be a more appropriate place to see a sight like that.
• But the sailors' curse has been lifted, and the ocean returns to its normal color. The Mariner tries not to look back on the past horrors he has seen. He's still pretty frightened that they will catch up with him again.
• He feels a pleasant wind on his body, but the wind seems to be located only around him and not the ocean outside the ship.

Stanzas 106-110

• The strange wind is localized just around the boat, but it means that the Mariner can sail again, even as the boat is still being pushed from beneath.
• The Mariner ends up back at the port he left from so, so long ago. He sees the lighthouse, hill, and church come back into view.
• It's a beautiful sight, and naturally, the Mariner is overjoyed.

Stanzas 111-115

• The moonlight shines across the bay, but another set of lights soon appears. He sees shapes in "crimson" or red colors. These turn out to be angels ("seraphs"). All the dead men who came back to life to sail the ship go back to being dead, and the angels are standing beside their bodies.
• These must be the angels that took over the sailors' bodies. They wave at the Mariner as if to say, "Our work is done. We're gonna peace out."
• They don't speak to the Mariner, but he feels delighted anyway.

Stanzas 116-18

• The Mariner hears a boat coming toward the ship. A "pilot" or oarsman and his young crewmate are coming to rescue him.
• There's another man on the boat, too: the nice old "hermit." A hermit is someone, often very religious, who lives his or her life in solitude. This particular hermit lives in the forest.
• The Mariner looks forward to the hermit clearing away his sins by asking him questions, by "shrieving" his soul, like a confession.

Stanzas 119-125

• The hermit lives by himself in the woods near the ocean, and he likes to gab it up with sailors who have just come back from long trips. He's very religious and can be seen frequently kneeling down to pray on the lush moss in his forest.
• The Mariner hears voices from the rescue boat. It's probably the pilot. The pilot wants to know what all those crazy red lights were. He thinks they were a rescue signal.
• The hermit agrees that the lights were weird, and he notices that the ship and its sails look dry, like tattered, fallen leaves. We can see that the hermit is going to compare everything to the forest.
• The pilot becomes afraid, but the hermit isn't too concerned.

Stanzas 126-130

• What's that? Some kind of strange, rumbling sound echoes across the bay. Oh, wait, that's just the sound of the ship sinking. It sinks fast, kind of like the albatross when it fell into the ocean.
• The Mariner ends up floating in the water. He seems basically comatose.
• The pilot swoops by to pick him, and the small boat spins from the suction created by the sinking ship.
• The pilot and hermit think the Mariner is dead, so when he moves his lips, they both freak out. The pilot faints and the hermit prays.
• The Mariner is like, "OK, if you guys aren't going to help, I'll just row us out of here myself." Meanwhile, the pilot's young assistant goes batty and starts laughing in a fit, saying that the Mariner must be a devil.

Stanzas 131-135

• Finally, they make it back to shore.
• Immediately the Mariner starts pestering the hermit to question ("shrieve") him like an over-eager kid in math class: "Call on me! Call on me!"
• The hermit plays along and asks a surprisingly dull question: what kind of man are you?
• At this point, the Mariner feels a sudden pain: "Must…tell…ridiculously long…story."
• As soon as he tells the story to the hermit, he feels a lot better.
• Now, the Mariner explains to the Wedding Guest that he often has this painful feeling that he needs to get the story off his chest, and the pain persists until he tells it.
• He travels from place to place looking for certain people who needto hear his tale. (Cough, cough, Wedding Guest.) He's a serial storyteller.

Stanzas 136-141

• The Mariner has now concluded his story, and he notes that the wedding sounds like quite the party. The bride and groom are singing in the garden, but all the Mariner wants to do is to say his night prayers.
• The Mariner says he knows what it means to feel lonely and distant from God.
• He says that it's much better to walk to church with a friend than to go to a marriage feast. He wants to see the entire community bow down in prayer.
• The Mariner summarizes his long sermon with the message that only people who love God's creations – men, birds, and animals included – can pray well and gain salvation.
• You have to love big things as well as small things, he says. And with that, he's out of here.

Stanzas 142-143

• For an old guy, the Mariner moves fast. He disappears and takes his bright eyes and frosty ("hoary") beard with him.
• Obviously moved by the Mariner's story, the Wedding Guest decides not to enter the wedding after all. (Can we just note: weddings are getting a really bad rap from the characters in this poem! You'd think the bride and groom had robbed a convenience store after the ceremony was over.)
• The Wedding Guest is totally befuddled, as if he has lost his senses. He just kind of staggers away in a stupor. He wakes up the next day "a sadder and a wiser man."