THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

 

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER

                        The Rime of the Ancient Marine (published in 1834) is a lyrical ballad written by the English poet and literary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834).

                        The ballad relates the sufferings and redemption of an old sailor and his mariners because he irreligiously shoots and kills an albatross leading to his and his companions supernatural punishment. He is forgiven only when he admires water snakes and exhibits deep love for them. He tells this story to a wedding guest whom he detains when he was going to attend the marriage celebration.  The moral of this ballad is that human beings can gain spiritual redemption only by learning to love God’s creatures to gain spiritual redemption.      

                        Look at the following lines from the poem:

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,

‘Tis 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! 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.

 

            Before the above-mentioned moral of the ballad , this is how he  praised

the water snakes:

 

Beyond the shadow of thee 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 unaware !

Sure my kind saint took pity on 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.

                                                            *****

G.R.Kanwal

11 August 2026