SOME LINES FROM THE RIME OF ANCIENT MARINER

 

               

 

                SOME LINES FROM THE RIME OF ANCIENT MARINER

                        “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner” is a narrative poem written by the English Poet and literary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).    

                        The poem is quite long in which an old sailor (the Ancient Mariner) detains a wedding guest to tell him a harrowing tale.

                        He recounts the incident of his shooting an albatross and getting his ship accursed.

                        Consequently, his crew dies and the situation changes for the better only when he learns and decides to respect nature.

                        He now agrees to undergo lifelong penance of wandering and sharing his story with whomever he meets. In the poem, his reluctant listener is the wedding guest.

                        Here are some important lines from the poem:

At length did cross an Albatross,

Through the Fog it came;

And as it were a Christian Soul,

We hail’d it in God’s name.

                        ---

I shot the Albatross.

                        ---

Day after day, day after day,

We stuck, ne breath, ne motion,

As idle as a painted Ship

Upon a painted ocean.

 

Water, water, everywhere

And all the boards did shrink;

Water, water, every where

Not any drop to drink.

                         ----

Alone, alone, all all alone

Alone on the wide wide Sea;

And Christ would take no pity on

My soul in agony.

                        ----

Beyond the shadow of the ship

I watch’d the water-snakes :

They mov’d in tracks of shining white ;

And when they rear’d, the elfish light

Fell off in hoary flakes.

 

Within the shadow of the ship

I watch’d their rich attire :

Blue, glossy green, and velvet black

They coil’d 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 gusht from my heart,

And I bless’d them unware !

Sure my kind saint took pity upon me,

And I bless’d 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.

                                    -----

O Wedding-guest ! this soul hath been

Alone on a wide wide sea

So lonely ‘twas, that God himself

Scarce seemed there to be.

 

O sweeter than the Marriage-feast

‘is sweeter far to me

To walk together to the Kirk

With a goodly company.

 

To walk together to the Kirk

And all together pray,

While each to his great father bends,

Old men, and babes, and loving friends,

And Youths, and Maidens gay.

                                    -----

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

7^th July 2026