Poet’s Corner: Coleridge–Rime 7

23 March 2026

(26 September 2014) We return to Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” with the Mariner naming himself a ‘slimy thing,’ an obvious reference to his “Hellish deed,” of slaying the innocent albatross. The Mariner, thinking himself at his lowest point, turns his eyes upward:

I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
But or ever a prayer had gushed,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

He, as King Claudius in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” is unable to pray; instead “a wicked whisper” comes from his mouth; like Shakespeare’s king, the Mariner still holds to his sin, his evil deed, as symbolized by the dead albatross around his neck. Again, his eyes fall on the dead crew, their looks still accusing:

The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed 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.

Thus he remains for a week of torment, seeing again and again the accusation written in the eyes of his dead crew, longing to join them and be released from the agony of his life, from the consequences of his “Hellish deed.” Come back Wednesday for more of Coleridge’s master work, when things turn even more strange! Good reading.