Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Kubla Khan

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.
It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me
That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed
And drunk the milk of Paradise.


Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772–1834
Written February 1797, Published 1816



Additional Notes

Spark's Notes - http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/coleridge/section5.rhtml

Wikipedia: Biography - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge

Wikipedia: Notes on Poem - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan


Reviews

About.com Poetry - http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/a/kublakhanguide.htm

John Spencer Hill - http://www.english.uga.edu/~nhilton/232/stc/comp3f.htm



 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - This Lime-tree Bower My Prison

    Well, they are gone, and here must I remain,

This lime-tree bower my prison! I have lost

Beauties and feelings, such as would have been

Most sweet to my remembrance even when age

Had dimm'd mine eyes to blindness! They, meanwhile,

Friends, whom I never more may meet again,

On springy heath, along the hill-top edge,

Wander in gladness, and wind down, perchance,

To that still roaring dell, of which I told;

The roaring dell, o'erwooded, narrow, deep,

And only speckled by the mid-day sun;

Where its slim trunk the ash from rock to rock

Flings arching like a bridge;—that branchless ash,

Unsunn'd and damp, whose few poor yellow leaves

Ne'er tremble in the gale, yet tremble still,

Fann'd by the water-fall! and there my friends

Behold the dark green file of long lank weeds,

That all at once (a most fantastic sight!)

Still nod and drip beneath the dripping edge

Of the blue clay-stone.

Now, my friends emerge

Beneath the wide wide Heaven—and view again

The many-steepled tract magnificent

Of hilly fields and meadows, and the sea,

With some fair bark, perhaps, whose sails light up

The slip of smooth clear blue betwixt two Isles

Of purple shadow! Yes! they wander on

In gladness all; but thou, methinks, most glad,

My gentle-hearted Charles! for thou hast pined

And hunger'd after Nature, many a year,

In the great City pent, winning thy way

With sad yet patient soul, through evil and pain

And strange calamity! Ah! slowly sink

Behind the western ridge, thou glorious Sun!

Shine in the slant beams of the sinking orb,

Ye purple heath-flowers! richlier burn, ye clouds!

Live in the yellow light, ye distant groves!

And kindle, thou blue Ocean! So my friend

Struck with deep joy may stand, as I have stood,

Silent with swimming sense; yea, gazing round

On the wide landscape, gaze till all doth seem

Less gross than bodily; and of such hues

As veil the Almighty Spirit, when yet he makes

Spirits perceive his presence.

A  delight

Comes sudden on my heart, and I am glad

As I myself were there! Nor in this bower,

This little lime-tree bower, have I not mark'd

Much that has sooth'd me. Pale beneath the blaze

Hung the transparent foliage; and I watch'd

Some broad and sunny leaf, and lov'd to see

The shadow of the leaf and stem above

Dappling its sunshine! And that walnut-tree

Was richly ting'd, and a deep radiance lay

Full on the ancient ivy, which usurps

Those fronting elms, and now, with blackest mass

Makes their dark branches gleam a lighter hue

Through the late twilight: and though now the bat

Wheels silent by, and not a swallow twitters,

Yet still the solitary humble-bee

Sings in the bean-flower! Henceforth I shall know

That Nature ne'er deserts the wise and pure;

No plot so narrow, be but Nature there,

No waste so vacant, but may well employ

Each faculty of sense, and keep the heart

Awake to Love and Beauty! and sometimes

'Tis well to be bereft of promis'd good,

That we may lift the soul, and contemplate

With lively joy the joys we cannot share.

My gentle-hearted Charles! when the last rook

Beat its straight path along the dusky air

Homewards, I blest it! deeming its black wing

(Now a dim speck, now vanishing in light)

Had cross'd the mighty Orb's dilated glory,

While thou stood'st gazing; or, when all was still,

Flew creeking o'er thy head, and had a charm

For thee, my gentle-hearted Charles, to whom

No sound is dissonant which tells of Life.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772–1834

Written February 1795, Published 1796

Additional Notes

Spark's Notes - http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/Coleridge

Wikipedia: Biography - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge

Wikipedia: Notes on Poem - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Lime-Tree_Bower_My_Prison

 

 

 

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - The Eolian Harp

My pensive Sara! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o’ergrown
With white-flowered Jasmin, and the broad-leaved Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love!)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddening round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such would Wisdom be)
Shine opposite! How exquisite the scents
Snatched from yon bean-field! and the world so hushed!
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.

And that simplest Lute,
Placed length-ways in the clasping casement, hark!
How by the desultory breeze caressed,
Like some coy maid half yielding to her lover,
It pours such sweet upbraiding, as must needs
Tempt to repeat the wrong! And now, its strings
Boldlier swept, the long sequacious notes
Over delicious surges sink and rise,
Such a soft floating witchery of sound
As twilight Elfins make, when they at eve
Voyage on gentle gales from Fairy-Land,
Where Melodies round honey-dropping flowers,
Footless and wild, like birds of Paradise,
Nor pause, nor perch, hovering on untamed wing!
O! the one Life within us and abroad,
Which meets all motion and becomes its soul,
A light in sound, a sound-like power in light,
Rhythm in all thought, and joyance everywhere -
Methinks, it should have been impossible
Not to love all things in a world so filled;
Where the breeze warbles, and the mute still air
Is Music slumbering on her instrument.

And thus, my Love! as on the midway slope
Of yonder hill I stretch my limbs at noon,
Whilst through my half-closed eyelids I behold
The sunbeams dance, like diamonds, on the main,
And tranquil muse upon tranquility:
Full many a thought uncalled and undetained,
And many idle flitting phantasies,
Traverse my indolent and passive brain,
As wild and various as the random gales
That swell and flutter on this subject Lute!

And what if all of animated nature
Be but organic Harps diversely framed,
That tremble into thought, as o’er them sweeps
Plastic and vast, one intellectual breeze,
At once the Soul of each, and God of all?

But thy more serious eye a mild reproof
Darts, O beloved Woman! nor such thoughts
Dim and unhallowed dost thou not reject,
And biddest me walk humbly with my God.
Meek Daughter in the family of Christ!
Well hast thou said and holily dispraised
These shapings of the unregenerate mind;
Bubbles that glitter as they rise and break
On vain Philosophy’s aye-babbling spring.
For never guiltless may I speak of him,
The Incomprehensible! save when with awe
I praise him, and with Faith that inly feels;
Who with his saving mercies healèd me,
A sinful and most miserable man,
Wildered and dark, and gave me to possess
Peace, and this Cot, and thee, heart-honored Maid!


Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772–1834
Written February 1795, Published 1796



Additional Notes

Spark's Notes - http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/Coleridge

Wikipedia: Biography - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge

Wikipedia: Notes on Poem - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eolian_Harp


Reviews

AndreaWorld Review - http://andreaworld.altervista.org/EolianHarp.html

Brandon Skenandore Review - http://brandonskenandore.com/2010/12/04/the-development-of-samuel-taylor-coleridge-through-his-work-%E2%80%9Cthe-eolian-harp%E2%80%9D/


 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Frost at Midnight

The Frost performs its secret ministry,

Unhelped by any wind. The owlet's cry

Came loud—and hark, again! loud as before.

The inmates of my cottage, all at rest,

Have left me to that solitude, which suits

Abstruser musings: save that at my side

My cradled infant slumbers peacefully.

'Tis calm indeed! so calm, that it disturbs

And vexes meditation with its strange

And extreme silentness. Sea, hill, and wood,

This populous village! Sea, and hill, and wood,

With all the numberless goings-on of life,

Inaudible as dreams! the thin blue flame

Lies on my low-burnt fire, and quivers not;

Only that film, which fluttered on the grate,

Still flutters there, the sole unquiet thing.

Methinks, its motion in this hush of nature

Gives it dim sympathies with me who live,

Making it a companionable form,

Whose puny flaps and freaks the idling Spirit

By its own moods interprets, every where

Echo or mirror seeking of itself,

And makes a toy of Thought.

But O! how oft,

How oft, at school, with most believing mind,

Presageful, have I gazed upon the bars,

To watch that fluttering stranger ! and as oft

With unclosed lids, already had I dreamt

Of my sweet birth-place, and the old church-tower,

Whose bells, the poor man's only music, rang

From morn to evening, all the hot Fair-day,

So sweetly, that they stirred and haunted me

With a wild pleasure, falling on mine ear

Most like articulate sounds of things to come!

So gazed I, till the soothing things, I dreamt,

Lulled me to sleep, and sleep prolonged my dreams!

And so I brooded all the following morn,

Awed by the stern preceptor's face, mine eye

Fixed with mock study on my swimming book:

Save if the door half opened, and I snatched

A hasty glance, and still my heart leaped up,

For still I hoped to see the stranger's face,

Townsman, or aunt, or sister more beloved,

My play-mate when we both were clothed alike!

Dear Babe, that sleepest cradled by my side,

Whose gentle breathings, heard in this deep calm,

Fill up the intersperséd vacancies

And momentary pauses of the thought!

My babe so beautiful! it thrills my heart

With tender gladness, thus to look at thee,

And think that thou shalt learn far other lore,

And in far other scenes! For I was reared

In the great city, pent 'mid cloisters dim,

And saw nought lovely but the sky and stars.

But thou, my babe! shalt wander like a breeze

By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags

Of ancient mountain, and beneath the clouds,

Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores

And mountain crags: so shalt thou see and hear

The lovely shapes and sounds intelligible

Of that eternal language, which thy God

Utters, who from eternity doth teach

Himself in all, and all things in himself.

Great universal Teacher! he shall mould

Thy spirit, and by giving make it ask.

Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,

Whether the summer clothe the general earth

With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing

Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch

Of mossy apple-tree, while the nigh thatch

Smokes in the sun-thaw; whether the eave-drops fall

Heard only in the trances of the blast,

Or if the secret ministry of frost

Shall hang them up in silent icicles,

Quietly shining to the quiet Moon.

 

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772–1834

Written February 1798

 

 

 

Additional Notes

 

Spark's Notes - http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/coleridge/section3.rhtml

 

Wikipedia: Biography - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge

 

Wikipedia: Notes on Poem - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frost_at_Midnight

 

 

 

 

Valparaiso Fiction Review

http://edwardbyrne.blogspot.com/2008/06/samuel-taylor-coleridge-frost-at.html

 

June 15, 2008

 

Every year as Father’s Day arrives a number of famous poems on the subject of fatherhood come to mind. However, one of the poems I often recall has added significance for other reasons. Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” is well known for the way it relates a father’s thoughts about his relationship with an infant son and the possibilities that exist for the son’s future, especially as he might come to experience or learn about nature and its lessons. Nevertheless, each time I read this poem I am reminded of a discussion during one of my graduate creative writing classes with Mark Strand. As we were deliberating about poems of mine under consideration, Mark suggested that some of the recurring concerns included in my poetry sometimes mirror those contained in “Frost at Midnight.”

 

The voice in the Coleridge poem sounds conversational while also emphasizing imagery. In addition, the poet contrasts his past, and an upbringing in the city among urban distractions, with the presence of nature in his present situation. Moreover, the speaker sees nature as an apt metaphor for a more spiritual attitude toward life, as well as an inspiration for the lessons it offers us. Indeed, the poem illustrates an individual’s meditative musings on nature and imagination, which also move from the past to the present and then toward a perception of possibilities for the future, especially as concerns the speaker’s young son.

 

At the time of the creative writing workshop, I was producing poems that attempted to imitate a relaxed informal voice yet including vivid imagery. Living in the Utah foothills, I frequently wrote poems contrasting the natural scenery currently around me, as well as my present experiences, with a childhood and upbringing in New York City. Often, my goals within the poetry concentrated on blending details of the natural environment with imaginative links to contemplative or speculative commentary, repeatedly bridging the past with the present and projecting into the future.

 

Although at the time I didn’t yet have a son about whom I would write, I already had a number of poems regarding the relationship I had enjoyed with my father. However, in recent years I have written many similar poems about the relationship I have with my son. In fact, Tidal Air has been described generously by Walt McDonald as a book-length diptych, a pair of poems—“first, about a son; last, about a father. The man we come to love both as father and as son is the voice caught in the middle of heartache and natural, ecstatic joy.”

 

When Mark Strand suggested studying more closely Coleridge’s “Frost at Midnight” as a model for my own poetry, I already knew the poem somewhat, but I admittedly hadn’t examined it as closely as I should have, nor did I immediately recognize the connections to many of my own poems. Strand insisted that I become more familiar with Coleridge’s poem by the next class meeting, which I did. In the decades since then, this poem has been a favorite of mine, one to which I have returned again and again for enlightenment, drawing upon it for guidance in my own writing. I was thankful for Strand’s recommendation that I reexamine Coleridge’s poem, and on this Father’s Day I would like to take the opportunity to urge readers revisit it as well.

 

 

 

Samuel Taylor Coleridge - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
http://www.bartleby.com/101/549.html


by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834

arranged by R.E. Slater, Poet (May 25, 2011)


In Seven Part Argument


ARGUMENT

How a Ship having passed the Line was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical Latitude of the Great Pacific Ocean; and of the strange things that befell her; and in what manner the Ancyent Marinere came back to his own Country. 

An ancient Mariner meeteth three gallants bidden to a wedding feast, and detaineth one.	PART I IT is an ancient Mariner,
	And he stoppeth one of three.
	'By thy long 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.
The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old seafaring man, and constrained to hear his tale.	He holds him with his glittering eye—
	The Wedding-Guest stood still,
	And listens like a three years' child:
	The Mariner hath his will.
	The Wedding-Guest sat on a stone:
	He cannot choose but hear;
	And thus spake on that ancient man,
	The bright-eyed Mariner.
	'The ship was cheer'd, the harbour clear'd,
	Merrily did we drop
	Below the kirk, below the hill,
	Below the lighthouse top.
The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair weather, till it reached the Line.	The Sun came up upon the left,
	Out of the sea came he!
	And he shone bright, and on the right
	Went down into the sea.
	Higher and higher every day,
	Till over the mast at noon——'
	The Wedding-Guest here beat his breast,
	For he heard the loud bassoon.
The Wedding-Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner continueth his tale.	The bride hath paced into the hall,
	Red as a rose is she;
	Nodding their heads before her goes
	The merry minstrelsy.
	The Wedding-Guest he beat his breast,
	Yet he cannot choose but hear;
	And thus spake on that ancient man,
	The bright-eyed Mariner.
The ship drawn by a storm toward the South Pole.	'And now the Storm-blast came, and he
	Was tyrannous and strong:
	He struck with his o'ertaking wings,
	And chased us south along.
	With sloping masts and dipping prow,
	As who pursued with yell and blow
	Still treads the shadow of his foe,
	And forward bends his head,
	The ship drove fast, loud roar'd the blast,
	The southward aye we fled.
	And now there came both mist and snow,
	And it grew wondrous cold:
	And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
	As green as emerald.
The land of ice, and of fearful sounds, where no living thing was to be seen.	And through the drifts the snowy clifts
	Did send a dismal sheen:
	Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
	The ice was all between.
	The ice was here, the ice was there,
	The ice was all around:
	It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd,
	Like noises in a swound!
Till a great sea-bird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and was received with great joy and hospitality.	At length did cross an Albatross,
	As if it had been a Christian soul,
	We hail'd it in God's name.
	It ate the food it ne'er had eat,
	And round and round it flew.
	The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
	The helmsman steer'd us through!
And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship as it returned northward through fog and floating ice.	And a good south wind sprung up behind;
	The Albatross did follow,
	And every day, for food or play,
	Came to the mariners' hollo!
	In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
	It perch'd for vespers nine;
	Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
	Glimmer'd the white moonshine.'
The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.	'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
	From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
	Why look'st thou so?'—'With my crossbow
	I shot the Albatross.
	PART II
	'The Sun now rose upon the right:
	Out of the sea came he,
	Still hid in mist, and on the left
	Went down into the sea.
	And the good south wind still blew behind,
	But no sweet bird did follow,
	Nor any day for food or play
	Came to the mariners' hollo!
His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner for killing the bird of good luck.	And I had done an hellish thing,
	And it would work 'em woe:
	For all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird
	That made the breeze to blow.
	Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
	That made the breeze to blow!
But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make themselves accomplices in the crime.	Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
	The glorious Sun uprist:
	Then all averr'd, I had kill'd the bird
	That brought the fog and mist.
	'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
	That bring the fog and mist.
The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails northward, even till it reaches the Line.	The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
	The furrow follow'd free;
	We were the first that ever burst
	Into that silent sea.
The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.	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.
And the Albatross begins to be avenged.	Water, water, everywhere,
	And all the boards did shrink;
	Water, water, everywhere,
	Nor any drop to drink.
	The very deep did rot: O Christ!
	That ever this should be!
	Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
	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.
A Spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew, Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element without one or more.	And some in dreams assuréd were
	Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
	Nine fathom deep he had followed us
	From the land of mist and snow.
	And every tongue, through utter drought,
	Was wither'd at the root;
	We could not speak, no more than if
	We had been choked with soot.
The shipmates in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on the ancient Mariner: in sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.	Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
	Had I from old and young!
	Instead of the cross, the Albatross
	About my neck was hung.
	PART III
	'There passed a weary time. Each throat
	Was parch'd, and glazed each eye.
	A weary time! a weary time!
	How glazed each weary eye!
The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.	When looking westward, I beheld
	A something in the sky.
	At first it seem'd a little speck,
	And then it seem'd a mist;
	It moved and moved, and took at last
	A certain shape, I wist.
	A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
	And still it near'd and near'd:
	As if it dodged a water-sprite,
	It plunged, and tack'd, and veer'd.
At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.	With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
	We could nor laugh nor wail;
	Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
	I bit my arm, I suck'd the blood,
	And cried, A sail! a sail!
	With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
	Agape they heard me call:
A flash of joy;	Gramercy! they for joy did grin,
	And all at once their breath drew in,
	As they were drinking all.
And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or tide?	See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
	Hither to work us weal—
	Without a breeze, without a tide,
	She steadies with upright keel!
	The western wave was all aflame,
	The day was wellnigh done!
	Almost upon the western wave
	Rested the broad, bright Sun;
	When that strange shape drove suddenly
	Betwixt us and the Sun.
It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.	And straight the Sun was fleck'd with bars
	(Heaven's Mother send us grace!),
	As if through a dungeon-grate he peer'd
	With broad and burning face.
	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?
And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun. The Spectre-Woman and her Death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton ship. Like vessel, like crew!	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 Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
	Who thicks man's blood with cold.
Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.	The naked hulk alongside came,
	And the twain were casting dice;
	"The game is done! I've won! I've won!"
	Quoth she, and whistles thrice.
No twilight within the courts of the Sun.	The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
	At one stride comes the dark;
	With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,
	Off shot the spectre-bark.
	We listen'd and look'd sideways up!
	Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
	My life-blood seem'd to sip!
	The stars were dim, and thick the night,
	The steersman's face by his lamp gleam'd white;
	From the sails the dew did drip—
At the rising of the Moon,	Till clomb above the eastern bar
	The hornéd Moon, with one bright star
	Within the nether tip.
One after another,	One after one, by the star-dogg'd Moon,
	Too quick for groan or sigh,
	Each turn'd his face with a ghastly pang,
	And cursed me with his eye.
His shipmates drop down dead.	Four times fifty living men
	(And I heard nor sigh nor groan),
	With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
	They dropp'd down one by one.
But Life-in-Death begins her work on the ancient Mariner.	The souls did from their bodies fly—
	They fled to bliss or woe!
	And every soul, it pass'd me by
	Like the whizz of my crossbow!'
PART IV
The Wedding-Guest feareth that a spirit is talking to him;	'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
	I fear thy skinny hand!
	And thou art long, and lank, and brown,
	As is the ribb'd sea-sand.
	I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
	And thy skinny hand so brown.'—
But the ancient Mariner assureth him of his bodily life, and proceedeth to relate his horrible penance.	'Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-Guest!
	This body dropt not down.
	Alone, alone, all, all alone,
	Alone on a wide, wide sea!
	And never a saint took pity on
	My soul in agony.
He despiseth the creatures of the calm.	The many men, so beautiful!
	And they all dead did lie:
	And a thousand thousand slimy things
	Lived on; and so did I.
And envieth that they should live, and so many lie dead.	I look'd upon the rotting sea,
	And drew my eyes away;
	I look'd upon the rotting deck,
	And there the dead men lay.
	I look'd to heaven, and tried to pray;
	But or ever a prayer had gusht,
	A wicked whisper came, and made
	My heart as dry as dust.
	I closed my lids, and kept them close,
	And the balls like pulses beat;
	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.
But the curse liveth for him in the eye of the dead men.	The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
	Nor rot nor reek did they:
	The look with which they look'd on me
	Had never pass'd away.
	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.
In his loneliness and fixedness he yearneth towards the journeying Moon, and the stars that still sojourn, yet still move onward; and everywhere the blue sky belongs to them, and is their appointed rest and their native country and their own natural homes, which they enter unannounced, as lords that are certainly expected, and yet there is a silent joy at their arrival.	The moving Moon went up the sky,
	And nowhere did abide;
	Softly she was going up,
	And a star or two beside—
	Her beams bemock'd the sultry main,
	Like April hoar-frost spread;
	But where the ship's huge shadow lay,
	The charméd water burnt alway
	A still and awful red.
By the light of the Moon he beholdeth God's creatures of the great calm.	Beyond the shadow of the ship,
	I watch'd the water-snakes:
	They moved 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.
Their beauty and their happiness.	O happy living things! no tongue
	Their beauty might declare:
	A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
He blesseth them in his heart.	And I bless'd them unaware:
	Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
	And I bless'd them unaware.
The spell begins to break.	The selfsame moment I could pray;
	And from my neck so free
	The Albatross fell off, and sank
	Like lead into the sea.
	PART V
	'O 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.
By grace of the holy Mother, the ancient Mariner is refreshed with rain.	The silly buckets on the deck,
	That had so long remain'd,
	I dreamt that they were fill'd with dew;
	And when I awoke, it rain'd.
	My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
	My garments all were dank;
	Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
	And still my body drank.
	I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
	I was so light—almost
	I thought that I had died in sleep,
	And was a blesséd ghost.
He heareth sounds and seeth strange sights and commotions in the sky and the element.	And soon I heard a roaring wind:
	It did not come anear;
	But with its sound it shook the sails,
	That were so thin and sere.
	The upper air burst into life;
	And a hundred fire-flags sheen;
	To and fro they were hurried about!
	And to and fro, and in and out,
	The wan stars danced between.
	And the coming wind did roar more loud,
	And the sails did sigh like sedge;
	And the rain pour'd down from one black cloud;
	The Moon was at its edge.
	The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
	The Moon was at its side;
	Like waters shot from some high crag,
	The lightning fell with never a jag,
	A river steep and wide.
The bodies of the ship's crew are inspired, and the ship moves on;	The loud wind never reach'd the ship,
	Yet now the ship moved on!
	Beneath the lightning and the Moon
	The dead men gave a groan.
	They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,
	Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
	It had been strange, even in a dream,
	To have seen those dead men rise.
	The helmsman steer'd, the ship moved on;
	Yet never a breeze up-blew;
	The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
	Where they were wont to do;
	They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
	We were a ghastly crew.
	The body of my brother's son
	Stood by me, knee to knee:
	The body and I pull'd at one rope,
	But he said naught to me.'
But not by the souls of the men, nor by demons of earth or middle air, but by a blessed troop of angelic spirits, sent down by the invocation of the guardian saint.	'I fear thee, ancient Mariner!'
	Be calm, thou Wedding-Guest:
	'Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
	Which to their corses came again,
	But a troop of spirits blest:
	For when it dawn'd—they dropp'd their arms,
	And cluster'd round the mast;
	Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
	And from their bodies pass'd.
	Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
	Then darted to the Sun;
	Slowly the sounds came back again,
	Now mix'd, now one by one.
	Sometimes a-dropping from the sky
	I heard the skylark sing;
	Sometimes all little birds that are,
	How they seem'd to fill the sea and air
	With their sweet jargoning!
	And now 'twas like all instruments,
	Now like a lonely flute;
	And now it is an angel's song,
	That makes the Heavens be mute.
	It ceased; yet still the sails made on
	A pleasant noise till noon,
	A noise like of a hidden brook
	In the leafy month of June,
	That to the sleeping woods all night
	Singeth a quiet tune.
	Till noon we quietly sail'd on,
	Yet never a breeze did breathe:
	Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
	Moved onward from beneath.
The lonesome Spirit from the South Pole carries on the ship as far as the Line, in obedience to the angelic troop, but still requireth vengeance.	Under the keel nine fathom deep,
	From the land of mist and snow,
	The Spirit slid: and it was he
	That made the ship to go.
	The sails at noon left off their tune,
	And the ship stood still also.
	The Sun, right up above the mast,
	Had fix'd her to the ocean:
	But in a minute she 'gan stir,
	With a short uneasy motion—
	Backwards and forwards half her length
	With a short uneasy motion.
	Then like a pawing horse let go,
	She made a sudden bound:
	It flung the blood into my head,
	And I fell down in a swound.
The Polar Spirit's fellow-demons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit, who returneth southward.	How long in that same fit I lay,
	I have not to declare;
	But ere my living life return'd,
	I heard, and in my soul discern'd
	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."
	PART VI
	First Voice: '"But tell me, tell me! speak again,
	Thy soft response renewing—
	What makes that ship drive on so fast?
	What is the Ocean doing?"
	Second Voice: "Still as a slave before his lord,
	The Ocean hath no blast;
	His great bright eye most silently
	Up to the Moon is cast—
	If he may know which way to go;
	For she guides him smooth or grim.
	See, brother, see! how graciously
	She looketh down on him."
The Mariner hath been cast into a trance; for the angelic power causeth the vessel to drive northward faster than human life could endure.	First Voice: "But why drives on that ship so fast,
	Without or wave or wind?"
	Second Voice: "The air is cut away before,
	And closes from behind.
	Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
	Or we shall be belated:
	For slow and slow that ship will go,
	When the Mariner's trance is abated.'
The supernatural motion is retarded; the Mariner awakes, and his penance begins anew.	I woke, and we were sailing on
	As in a gentle weather:
	'Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high;
	The dead men stood together.
	All stood together on the deck,
	For a charnel-dungeon fitter:
	All fix'd on me their stony eyes,
	That in the Moon did glitter.
	The pang, the curse, with which they died,
	Had never pass'd away:
	I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
	Nor turn them up to pray.
The curse is finally expiated.	And now this spell was snapt: once more
	I viewed the ocean green,
	And look'd far forth, yet little saw
	Of what had else been seen—
	Like one that on a lonesome road
	Doth walk in fear and dread,
	And having once turn'd round, walks on,
	And turns no more his head;
	Because he knows a frightful fiend
	Doth close behind him tread.
	But soon there breathed a wind on me,
	Nor sound nor motion made:
	Its path was not upon the sea,
	In ripple or in shade.
	It raised my hair, it fann'd my cheek
	Like a meadow-gale of spring—
	It mingled strangely with my fears,
	Yet it felt like a welcoming.
	Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
	Yet she sail'd softly too:
	Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
	On me alone it blew.
And the ancient Mariner beholdeth his native country.	O dream of joy! is this indeed
	The lighthouse top I see?
	Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
	Is this mine own countree?
	We drifted o'er the harbour-bar,
	And I with sobs did pray—
	O let me be awake, my God!
	Or let me sleep alway.
	The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
	So smoothly it was strewn!
	And on the bay the moonlight lay,
	And the shadow of the Moon.
	The rock shone bright, the kirk no less
	That stands above the rock:
	The moonlight steep'd in silentness
	The steady weathercock.
The angelic spirits leave the dead bodies,	And the bay was white with silent light
	Till rising from the same,
	Full many shapes, that shadows were,
	In crimson colours came.
And appear in their own forms of light.	A little distance from the prow
	Those crimson shadows were:
	I turn'd my eyes upon the deck—
	O Christ! what saw I there!
	Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
	And, by the holy rood!
	A man all light, a seraph-man,
	On every corse there stood.
	This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
	It was a heavenly sight!
	They stood as signals to the land,
	Each one a lovely light;
	This seraph-band, each waved his hand,
	No voice did they impart—
	No voice; but O, the silence sank
	Like music on my heart.
	But soon I heard the dash of oars,
	I heard the Pilot's cheer;
	My head was turn'd perforce away,
	And I saw a boat appear.
	The Pilot and the Pilot's boy,
	I heard them coming fast:
	Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
	The dead men could not blast.
	I saw a third—I heard his voice:
	It is the Hermit good!
	He singeth loud his godly hymns
	That he makes in the wood.
	He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away
	The Albatross's blood.
	PART VII
The Hermit of the Wood.	'This Hermit good lives in that wood
	Which slopes down to the sea.
	How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
	He loves to talk with marineres
	That come from a far countree.
	He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
	He hath a cushion plump:
	It is the moss that wholly hides
	The rotted old oak-stump.
	The skiff-boat near'd: I heard them talk,
	"Why, this is strange, I trow!
	Where are those lights so many and fair,
	That signal made but now?"
Approacheth the ship with wonder.	"Strange, by my faith!" the Hermit said—
	"And they answer'd not our cheer!
	The planks looked warp'd! and see those sails,
	How thin they are and sere!
	I never saw aught like to them,
	Unless perchance it were
	Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
	My forest-brook along;
	When the ivy-tod is heavy with snow,
	And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
	That eats the she-wolf's young."
	"Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look—
	(The Pilot made reply)
	I am a-fear'd"—"Push on, push on!"
	Said the Hermit cheerily.
	The boat came closer to the ship,
	But I nor spake nor stirr'd;
	The boat came close beneath the ship,
	And straight a sound was heard.
The ship suddenly sinketh.	Under the water it rumbled on,
	Still louder and more dread:
	It reach'd the ship, it split the bay;
	The ship went down like lead.
The ancient Mariner is saved in the Pilot's boat.	Stunn'd by that loud and dreadful sound,
	Which sky and ocean smote,
	Like one that hath been seven days drown'd
	My body lay afloat;
	But swift as dreams, myself I found
	Within the Pilot's boat.
	Upon the whirl, where sank the ship,
	The boat spun round and round;
	And all was still, save that the hill
	Was telling of the sound.
	I moved my lips—the Pilot shriek'd
	And fell down in a fit;
	The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
	And pray'd where he did sit.
	I took the oars: the Pilot's boy,
	Who now doth crazy go,
	Laugh'd 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."
	And now, all in my own countree,
	I stood on the firm land!
	The Hermit stepp'd forth from the boat,
	And scarcely he could stand.
The ancient Mariner earnestly entreateth the Hermit to shrieve him; and the penance of life falls on him.	"O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!"
	The Hermit cross'd his brow.
	"Say quick," quoth he, "I bid thee say—
	What manner of man art thou?"
	Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd
	With a woful agony,
	Which forced me to begin my tale;
	And then it left me free.
And ever and anon throughout his future life an agony constraineth him to travel from land to land;	Since then, at an uncertain hour,
	That agony returns:
	And till my ghastly tale is told,
	This heart within me burns.
	I pass, like night, from land to land;
	I have strange power of speech;
	That moment that his face I see,
	I know the man that must hear me:
	To him my tale I teach.
	What loud uproar bursts from that door!
	The wedding-guests are there:
	But in the garden-bower the bride
	And bride-maids singing are:
	And hark the little vesper bell,
	Which biddeth me to prayer!
	O Wedding-Guest! this soul hath been
	Alone on a wide, wide sea:
	So lonely 'twas, that God Himself
	Scarce seeméd 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!
And to teach, by his own example, love and reverence to all things that God made and loveth.	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
	Turn'd from the bridegroom's door.
	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.

by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834

1797-1798, first version published 1798, 1800, 1802, 1805; revised version, including addition of his marginal glosses, published in 1817, 1828, 1829, 1834.

(proofed against E. H. Coleridge's 1927 edition of STC's poems and a ca. 1898 edition of STC's Poetical Works, ``reprinted from the early editions'')


Samuel Taylor Coleridge (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834)

An English poet, critic and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England and one of the Lake Poets. He is probably best known for his poems The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Kubla Khan, as well as his major prose work Biographia Literaria.

For further information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner

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Gustave Dore (Author, Illustrator)

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Samuel Taylor Coleridge (Author), Gustave Dore (Author, Illustrator), Martin Gardner (Author, Introduction) - http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Ancient-Mariner-Rime/dp/1591021251/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306335127&sr=1-1#

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A Note from R. E. Slater

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner quickly became my favorite poem when first discovering it in my youth, so that when attending college much later I decided to write an abridged version of this poem with my own coloration's and themes but left untitled. And as I did, I would emboss it with the same temperament and strong allusions to the sea that Coleridge uses in his Rime while also including several of the more prominent verses as homage to this vivid writer's expressions. Thereafter it sat incomplete for 30 years until I decided to include within its poetic structure nods to Henry Dana's novel, Two Years before the Mast,  and Felicia Heman's poem, Casabianca, and also to James Joyce's Ulysses, again using my own voice and allusions. Then could it be completed over a several month period into a final state of readiness in January 2009 along with a newly crafted title The Seafarers.

From this sprung several other poems on the sea including an adventure poem this time as an ode-tribute to the ancient sailors and legends of Greece utilizing their own myths for my themes and storyline while borrowing the Iliad's style and incorporating proverbial allusions from the Bible. I greatly enjoyed producing this piece and have since produced even more narrative poems borrowing from my own cacophony of mythological figures and external speakers.

Because I am still producing poetic verse and stories, I have committed no time to researching how I might publish my poems (having the very strong preference of not wishing that activity to interfere with my own timeline for writing and creative thinking). Consequently, I have produced only a few works online at my website which I have called my Occasional Poems. They are unlike my other poems but of a sort that I am willing to share as inspiration to the reader.

About a year ago, in the spring of 2011, feeling burned out and requiring a change of writing venue, I then began two websites. This one here, and a theological website to explore contemporary versions of post-modern, post-evangelic Christianity (at one time known as Emergent Theology), going under the name of Relevancy22. It has been a good project to pour myself into and has allowed me to think about life's deeper theo-sophic themes while writing newer poetry that may include some of these more sublime themes. Meanwhile, I am hard at work crafting new poems and editing older ones having completed the rough outlines of several very long stories that I hope to someday share for your thrall and enjoyment. At least that is my hope during these long winter months of duty and self-confinement. Wish me well!

R.E. Slater

January 29, 2012