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The Rime of the Ancient Mariner | The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in Seven Parts - Page 2

Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.

And the Albatross
begins to be avenged.


The very deep did rot: O Christ!(120)
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(130)
From the land of mist and snow.

A Spirit had followed
them; one of the invis-
ible inhabitants of this
planet, neither depart-
ed 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.(135)
Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the Cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

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.


Part the Third.

There passed a weary time. Each throat(140)
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.(145)

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


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!(150)
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 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!

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.


With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:(160)
Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

A flash of joy;


See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;(165)
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

And horror follows.
For can it be a ship
that comes onward
without wind or tide?


The western wave was all a-flame
The day was well nigh done!
Almost upon the western wave(170)
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!)(175)
As if through a dungeon-grate he peered,
With broad and burning face.

It seemeth him but the
skeleton of a ship.


Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,(180)
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?(185)
Is DEATH that woman's mate?

And its ribs are seen
as bars on the face of
the setting Sun. The
Spectre-Woman and
her Death-mate, and
no other on board the
skeleton ship. Like ves
sel, like crew!


Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-Mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,(190)
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.(195)

Death and Life-in-
Death have diced for
the ship's crew, and she
(the latter) winneth
the ancient Mariner.


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.

No twilight within the
courts of the Sun.


We listened and looked sideways up!(200)
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dew did drip—(205)
Till clombe above the eastern bar
The hornéd Moon, with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

At the rising of the
Moon,


One after one, by the star-dogged Moon
Too quick for groan or sigh,(210)
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

One after another,


Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,(215)
They dropped down one by one.

His shipmates drop
down dead.


The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whiz of my cross-bow! (220)

But Life-in-Death
begins her work on the
ancient Mariner.


Part the Fourth.

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

The Wedding-Guest
feareth that a spirit is
talking to him;


“I fear thee and thy glittering eye,(225)
And thy skinny hand, so brown—”
Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
This body dropt not down.

But the ancient
Mariner assureth him
of his bodily life, and
proceedeth to relate
his horrible penance.


Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!(230)
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(235)
Lived on—and so did I.

He despiseth the crea
tures of the calm.


I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.(240)

And envieth that they
should live, and so
many lie dead.


I looked to Heaven, and tried to pray:
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.
I closed my lids, and kept them close,(245)
And 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 spirit of the slain albatross is “swimming” nine fathoms beneath the ship and has done so since the Mariner killed it somewhere near the South Pole. A fathom is equal to six feet.
  • “Instead of the Cross, the Albatross / About my neck was hung.” – This act is the source of the common expression “having an albatross around [one's] neck,” meaning a burden or a curse that weighs someone down.
  • to know, believe
  • “I bit my arm, I sucked the blood, / And cried, A sail! a sail!” – The Mariner sees a ship but because there is no water to drink, he must drink his own blood in order to call out to his fellow sailors.
  • an expression of gratitude
  • well-being
  • This describes the image of the ship's masts silhouetted against the sun.
  • films of cobweb-like material suspended in the air; this suggests how tattered and threadbare the Ghost Ship's sails were.
  • The “female” member of the Ghost Ship's crew is similar to a demon.
  • the bare, stripped Ghost Ship
  • the two crew members, male and female
  • tossing dice, as if to emphasize that fate is a matter of chance, both that of the Mariner and of the Ghost Ship
  • three times; pay attention to the many times Coleridge uses the numbers seven and three and multiples of three, especially nine.
  • a ghostly ship
  • climbed
  • The members of the Mariner's crew die, one by one, each cursing the Mariner with a dying look.
  • “…Like the whiz of my cross-bow!” – The souls of the dying crew members fly from their bodies with a whirring sound like an arrow leaving a cross-bow. Remember that the Mariner shot the albatross with his cross-bow.
  • The Wedding-Guest is speaking again.
  • The Wedding-Guest fears that the Mariner is a ghost, but the old man is not. The Mariner did not die when the others did.
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