Poet’s Corner: Coleridge–Rime 3

13 March 2026

(29 August 2014) Last Wednesday we saw the Ancient Mariner commit an evil, arbitrary act in killing the albatross that had led them from the ice; this week, we begin to see the consequences of this act. The crew vacillates between blaming the Mariner for killing the bird and lauding him for the same act. The ship is caught in the doldrums, a windless space which causes them to use up all their water, and we get the most often quoted verse of Coleridge’s poem:

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

Dying of thirst, and followed by a ‘spirit’ that haunts them, the crew finally decide to punish the Mariner for his “hellish deed,” hoping that a penance by the Mariner will release them from the doldrums:

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

This action by his shipmates is an attempt to shift the blame from themselves to the Mariner, in token of which they hang the dead albatross around his neck. The idea that this action–bearing the dead albatross–is a kind of payment for his crime, comes from the contrast: instead of a cross, a Christian symbol for the Savior’s death and a reminder of the death on the cross worn by some Christians, they give him the dead bird, an object which, by this time, must have become quite fragrant! It is a symbol of his evil act, to remind him again and again of his “hellish deed.” But this action does not appease the powers that hold their ship in the doldrums. Instead, the windless sea continues, and all members of the crew become more and more thirsty, until one day they see a ship in the distance, which is were we will take up the tale Monday. Until then, good reading!