One day, while watching some water snakes at play, he was charmed with their beauty and blessed them unawares—a sure sign that love for God's lower creatures was springing up in his heart. The next instant the spell began to break: the albatross fell from his neck into the sea and he could move his lips in prayer. He slept, and the Holy Mother sent rain; and when he awoke the wind was blowing. A troop of angelic spirits now entered the bodies of the dead sailors and worked the ropes, and, obedient to the angels, the Spirit of the South Pole helped the ship onward. As she sped on, the Mariner, who lay in a swoon, learned from the talk of two spirits that his penance was not yet accomplished. Soon after waking he beheld the shores of his native country. As the vessel neared the land the angels left the bodies of the sailors, and at the same time a small boat approached bringing a pilot and his boy, and a pious hermit—all known to the Mariner. Suddenly there was a dreadful sound, and the ship sank. On coming to his senses the Mariner found himself in the pilot's boat. When the hermit asked him, "What manner of man art thou?" his agony was fearful until he had found relief in telling his experience. As a punishment for his crime in shooting the albatross the agony was to return at intervals and compel him to travel from land to land relating his strange tale. After admonishing the wedding guest to love well both man and beast, the ancient Mariner departed. The poet says of his listener,
"A sadder and a wiser man
He rose the morrow morn."
[*]When The Ancient Mariner was reprinted in 1800, the poet added explanatory notes in the margin. These have been found useful in writing this argument. The poet's notes are given in his Poetical Works, edited by James Dykes Campbell (1893).
THE ANCIENT MARINER
PART I
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three,
"By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?
"The Bridegroom's doors are opened wide, 5
And I am next of kin;[1]
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[2] he. 10
"Hold off! unhand me, grey-beard loon!"[3]
Eftsoons[4] his hand dropped he.
He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-Guest stood still,
And listens like a three years' child:[5] 15
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. 20