Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Quotes

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

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

Alone, alone, all, all alone, Alone on a wide wide sea! And never a saint took pity on My soul in agony.

He prayeth best, who loveth best All things both great and small; For the dear God who loveth us, He made and loveth all.

Her lips were red, her looks were free, Her locks were yellow as gold: Her skin was white as leprosy, The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she, Who thicks man's blood with cold.

Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, This heart within me burns.

Like one, that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows, a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread.

The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.

The fair breeze blew, The white foam flew, And the forrow followed free. We were the first to ever burst into the silent sea.

He went like one that hath been stunn'd, And is of sense forlorn: A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn.

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks Had I from old and young! Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.

Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sailed softly too: Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze - On me alone it blew.

An orphans curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! How more horrible that that Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!

Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing, Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, That slid into my soul.

He prayeth best who loveth best, all things both great and small.

About, about, in reel and rout The death-fires danced at night; The water, like a witch's oils, Burnt green, and blue, and white

Day after day, day after day, we stuck nor breath nor motion As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean Water, water everywhere and all the boards did shrink Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink.

I look'd to Heav'n, and try'd to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came and made My heart as dry as dust.

I shot the ALBATROSS.

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white, Glimmered the white moonshine. [...] Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

And I had done a hellish thing, And it would work 'em woe: For all averred, I had killed the bird That made the breeze to blow. Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, That made the breeze to blow!

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.

The selfmoment I could pray; And from my neck so free The Albatross fell off, and sank Like lead into the sea.

This guilt was an invisible but heavy albatross hanging around my neck. (That’s a reference to Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.) I wear that bird like Björk wore her swan dress. I wave from a red carpet leading to hell.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die.

They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes; It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen those dead men rise.

Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.

Water, water everywhere Nor any drop to drink.

The ship was cheered, the harbor cleared, Merrily did we drop Below the kirk, below the hill, Below the lighthouse top.

I readily believe that there are more invisible than visible Natures in the universe. But who will explain for us the family of all these beings, and the ranks and relations and distinguishing features and functions of each? What do they do? What places do they inhabit? The human mind has always sought the knowledge of these things, but never attained it. Meanwhile I do not deny that it is helpful sometimes to contemplate in the mind, as on a tablet, the image of a greater and better world, lest the intellect, habituated to the petty things of daily life, narrow itself and sink wholly into trivial thoughts. But at the same time we must be watchful for the truth and keep a sense of proportion, so that we may distinguish the certain from the uncertain, day from night.

The very deep did rot: O Christ! That ever this should be! Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs Upon the slimy sea.

For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky Lay like a load on my weary eye, And the dead were at my feet.

Instead of the cross, the Albatross About my neck was hung.

O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been Alone on a wide wide sea: So lonely 'twas, that God himself Scarce seemed there to be.

By thy long grey beard and glittering eye, Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

The ice was here, the ice was there,   The ice was all around: 60   It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,   Like noises in a swound!

God save thee, ancient Mariner! From the fiends, that plague thee thus! — Why look'st thou so?' — With my cross-bow I shot the Albatross.

Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down, 'Twas sad as sad could be; And we did speak only to break The silence of the sea! All in a hot and copper sky, The bloody Sun, at noon, Right up above the mast did stand, No bigger than the Moon. Day after day, day after day, We stuck, nor breath nor motion; As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean.

I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy, Who now doth crazy go, Laughed loud and long, and all the while His eyes went to and fro. ‘Ha! ha!’ quoth he, ‘full plain I see, The Devil knows how to row.

How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; But ere my living life returned, I heard and in my soul discerned Two VOICES in the air. "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man? By him who died on cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low, The harmless Albatross. "The spirit who bideth by himself In the land of mist and snow, He loved the bird that loved the man Who shot him with his bow." The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew: Quoth he, "The man hath penance done, And penance more will do.

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. The Mariner, whose eye is bright, Whose beard with age is hoar, Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest Turned from the bridegroom's door.

O happy things! no tongue Their beauty might declare: A spring of love gished from my heart, And I blessed them unaware

Water, water, every where And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Ne any drop to drink.

The New Héloise" in the field of sentiment and of the relation of the sexes, "The Social Contract" In political theory, and "Émile" in matters of education, were books whose influence upon Coleridge's generation it would be hard to estimate

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.

His feeling for the South was not so much historic as it was of the core and desire of dark romanticism--that unlimited and inexplicable drunkenness, the magnetism of some men's blood that takes them into the heart of the heat, and beyond that, into the polar and emerald cold of the South as swiftly as it took the heart of that incomparable romanticist who wrote The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, beyond which there is nothing. And this desire of his was unquestionably enhanced by all he had read and visioned, by the romantic halo that his school history cast over the section, by the whole fantastic distortion of that period where people were said to live in "mansions," and slavery was a benevolent institution, conducted to a constant banjo-strumming, the strewn largesses of the colonel and the shuffle-dance of his happy dependents, where all women were pure, gentle, and beautiful, all men chivalrous and brave, and the Rebel horde a company of swagger, death-mocking cavaliers. Years later, when he could no longer think of the barren spiritual wilderness, the hostile and murderous intrenchment against all new life--when their cheap mythology, their legend of the charm of their manner, the aristocratic culture of their lives, the quaint sweetness of their drawl, made him writhe--when he could think of no return to their life and its swarming superstition without weariness and horror, so great was his fear of the legend, his fear of their antagonism, that he still pretended the most fanatic devotion to them, excusing his Northern residence on grounds of necessity rather than desire.

Day after day, day after day, 115   We stuck, nor breath nor motion;   As idle as a painted ship   Upon a painted ocean. [Sidenote: And the Albatross begins to be avenged.] Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink; 120 Water, water, every where Nor any drop to drink. The very deep did rot: O Christ!   That ever this should be!   Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs 125   Upon the slimy sea. About, about, in reel and rout   The death-fires danced at night;   The water, like a witch's oils,   Burnt green, and blue and white. 130

Some people imagine that rhyme interferes with the rational processes of thought by obliging us to distort what we originally had in mind. But are rational processes so important? In many of us, even in poets, they can be dull and predictable. An interruption, a few detours and unexpected turns, might make a trip with them less routine. The necessity of finding a rhyme may jolt the mind out of its ruts, force it to turn wildly across the fields in some more exhilarating direction. Force it out of the world of reason into the world of mystery, magic, and imagination, in which relationships between sounds may be as exciting as a Great Idea.

Rime of the Ancient Mariner

An orphan’s curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man’s eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die. —Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

I thought of a line from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “As idle as a painted ship / Upon a painted ocean.

But though the two young writers are ostensibly concerned with children, they do not only mean children: when Coleridge invokes the imagination of a child, he is yearning for its power for himself. The child might be father to the man, as Wordsworth famously wrote in his ode, 'Intimations of Immortality', but that paternity was, ideally, internal and present and active: the Romantics were the first to conceive of the Inner Child, and to yearn to reinstate the child's sway over the adult. They expressed nostalgia for childhood; but even more acutely, they longed for childlikeness to endure in order to keep their faculties quick and fertile. And between them, Charles Lamb and Coleridge pioneered the idea of the crossover text, the work of fantasy that appeals across generations, such as 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', or, as it would turn out, Tales from Shakespeare.

The Lighthouse by Stewart Stafford Apart and alone, From where the ships dock, Stands the white sentinel edifice on a promontory rock. Like the land's index finger, At the extent of the sea, Warning passing vessels where it's safe to be. It's one luminous eye, Swivels around its clear head, To keep lucky sailors off the seabed. It seeks no credit, And needs no thanks, Saluting proudly from above the fog banks. © Stewart Stafford, 2021. All rights reserved.