“The western wave was all aflame,
The day was well-nigh done,
Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad bright sun.”
There the marine would seem to be quite complete, but Coleridge has yet to heighten the effect of the sunset by introducing a memory of an impression received perhaps in boyhood. His imagination, having conjured up the image of the phantom ship, combines it with the burning sunset:
“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