30 March 2026
(17 October 2014) Recall that when we last saw the Mariner, he had finally ‘paid’ the penance for his evil deed, and in that moment, he was able to pray and the dead symbol of his deed, the albatross, falls from his neck and sinks into the sea. We also remind the reader that the ship is still caught in the doldrums, without wind, without water, so what we see now is that the Mariner can finally fall asleep (how much time has passed is not made clear in the text, but we can assume a week or two), and while he is asleep, he dreams:
The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.
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 blessed ghost.
We first note that one way sailing ships supplied themselves with freshwater was the rain barrel, kept open to capture the rains that often fell. Here, we see that the Mariner and his crew were so desperate for water that they put every bucket and barrel available on the deck in hopes of catching any moisture, so we must add these to the clutter (dead sailors) covering the deck of his ship; one can easily imagine that the Mariner, to move anywhere on his ship, had to step over either dead bodies or buckets, so he calls them ‘silly.’ He dreams that the buckets are all filled with water, and when he awakens, it is raining. He is so thirsty, so dry, that, although he drinks his fill, his skin continues to soak up moisture, and the feeling is so foreign, so wonderful, that he thinks, for a moment, that he has finally died, becoming ‘a blessed ghost,’ for a ghost has no need of food and water.
As we go forward, we shall see just how appropriate this poem is for this season (Halloween at the time), as things will become stranger and stranger. Good reading!
Clyde B. Northrup 
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