The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
An old sailor stops a guest on his way to a wedding and makes him listen: the ship driven south into the ice, the albatross he shot, and the curse that came after. In seven parts. By Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1798). A public-domain classic.
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How it begins It is an ancient Mariner, / And he stoppeth one of three. / "By thy long grey 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." Keep reading →About this story
An old sailor stops a guest on his way to a wedding and makes him listen: the ship driven south into the ice, the albatross he shot, and the curse that came after. The poem is in seven parts, and the guest has no choice but to hear it.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge published it in 1798, in Lyrical Ballads, the book he made with William Wordsworth that is often said to have started English Romantic poetry. It has given English the phrase ‘an albatross around your neck’. It is long, strange and very musical.
- Themes
- Guilt, nature, punishment and redemption, a story that must be told
- Good for
- Reading aloud; a classic that is easier to enjoy than to describe
- Worth noticing
- How the old sailor’s story changes the guest by the end.