ALL LIFE IS SACRED
The
main theme of the poem “The Rime of Ancient Mariner” written by the English
romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) is that all life is sacred.
The
Ancient Mariner who was travelling with several companions committed the sin of impulsively killing by shooting
an albatross, a pious bird of the sea.
He
told a wedding guests whom he had detained to tell the story of his sin and
retribution: “ With my cross-bow I shot the albatross.: He also told him the dreadful reaction of the sea. For example, the water
was still everywhere but not a drop to drink.
“With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
we could not laugh nor wail; through utter drought all dumb we stood!”
Not
only this: The many men on the ship, so beautiful, all lay dead, whereas he
continued to live like thousands of slimy things of the sea.
How
the situation changed after seeing appreciatively
the beautiful sea snakes is described in the following stanzas:
“O
happy living things! no tongue/Their beauty might declare/A spring of love
gushed from my heart,/And I blessed then unaware:/ Sure my kind saint took pity
on me,/And I blessed them unware. The self-same moment I could pray;/And from
my neck so free/The Albatross fell off, and sank/Like lead into the sea.
The
guilty mariner was now restful. He was able to sleep peacefully. He then
contacted a hermit to hear his confession and forgive him.
This
great poem about sacredness of all life ends
with the following lines:
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.
********
G.R.Kanwal
30 October 2025
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