Poet’s Corner: Coleridge–Rime 1

7 March 2026

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(15 August 2014) Another favorite of mine of Coleridge is “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” which was the principle poem in the 1798 edition of the “Lyrical Ballads.” At that time, Coleridge was the known poet and Wordsworth unknown. Coleridge later noted that it was his part of the project to deal with subjects ‘supernatural’ in a manner similar to Wordsworth’s poetry of everyday life. People were so puzzled by the original “Rime” that they asked Coleridge to publish a new version with explanatory notes, so we have an edited version of the poem, now in seven parts, with marginal notes explaining the text. Here are the first five stanzas of Part 1:

It is an ancient mariner
And he stoppeth one of three.
–‘By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stoppest thou me?

The bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
Mayst 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 dropped he.

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.

Coleridge chose to use what is called the ballad stanza, an older form most often used by the traveling minstrels of Medieval times, who passed from place to place telling stories using this form. This form, however, is much older, found in ancient poems like those by Homer, Coleridge using many Homeric devices. Basically, the ballad stanza consist of four lines rhymed on the second and fourth lines; lines one and three are tetrameter (four beats) while lines two and four are trimeter (three beats). Later in this long poem, Coleridge makes ballad stanzas longer than four lines while maintaining the same metrical pattern and rhyme scheme throughout. Why he chose this form baffled Wordsworth and other readers, but the choice creates a musical, and an feeling of oldness, as if this mariner’s story happened long ago, and he is still telling the tale (out of a compulsion that comes much later). This mariner has a strange power–the ability to ‘mesmerize’ his listener, such that, although the wedding proceeds apace, and the stopped guest protests that he must join the feast, he never is able to escape the gaze of the ‘bright-eyed mariner!’ More coming next week, on Wednesday, from Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Good reading!