Dear Readers, I have a great fondness for Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner‘. For one thing, I always see myself in the Ancient Mariner as he stops the wedding guest and insists that he listen to his story: I am forever stopping people and insisting that they look at the moon/a bunch of waxwings/a particularly fat caterpillar etc. No one has called me a ‘grey-beard loon’ yet but it’s only a matter of time.

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,
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, grey-beard loon!’
Eftsoons his hand dropt he.

In case you don’t know the story, the Ancient  Mariner shoots an albatross on a whim, bringing destruction to his ship and his shipmates, who all die of thirst. The Mariner is left with the albatross hanging around his neck as a sign of his sin, and the ship is left stranded, without a breath of a breeze. The most famous words of the poem came to me several times while we were wallowing around in the North Atlantic waiting for a whale to turn up, although of course we had plenty of water, and were only a few miles offshore.

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

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

Then a moment of hope – a ship is sighted! Sadly this is not a good thing:

“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 Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.”

At this, everyone else on the ship drops dead, leaving only the Ancient Mariner.

“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.”

But in the most moving part of the poem, the Ancient Mariner sees the sea snakes in the water, and his heart softens.

“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 self-same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.”

I find this pivotal moment so touching. I suspect many of us have been touched to the quick by something that we’ve seen in nature, whether it be the glimpse of a fox or a deer, or sparrows feeding their fledglings. In that moment there can be a sense of fellow-feeling, a wish that the animal will be happy and healthy. I certainly felt it with the whales and dolphins in the Azores, but I often feel it with the animals and even plants that I see regularly in my garden or around my home. Is this love what will save us, and them, and maybe everything? Coleridge seemed to think so.

After many more ghastly adventures, the Ancient Mariner returns to his ‘own countree’, but every so often the fit comes upon him to grab some poor unfortunate and tell his tale. But what is the moral of it?

“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.”

What an extraordinary poem this is. I recommend sitting down with it and reading it when you have the time – there is such imagination in it. And what a story! Let me know what you think, Readers, if you’ve studied it or read it, or if it’s new to you.