Poet’s Corner: Coleridge, Rime 16

17 April 2026

Welcome back for another installment of the Poet’s Corner! (12 December 2014) Last time, we learned that angelic beings had animated the Mariner’s crew, but now that the ship had returned to the Mariner’s home port, these divine characters leave and the corpses fall down. The Mariner then hears the oars and splash of the pilot’s boat–he who will guide the ship into the harbor–and sees three in the boat: the pilot, the pilot’s boy (indentured servant), and the local Hermit. This third person brings the Mariner a sudden joy, for he can receive the Mariner’s confession of his “hellish deed” and “shrieve” him, which means forgive. This new group, however, notices that this ship is odd:

The skiff boat neared: I heard them talk,
‘Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now? ‘

‘Strange, by my faith! ‘ the hermit said –
‘And they answered not our cheer!
The planks look warped! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were

Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy tod is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf’s young.’

‘Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look, ‘
The pilot made reply,
‘I am a-feared’ – ‘Push on, push on! ‘
Said the hermit cheerily.

The pilot calls the ship ‘strange’ and relates his doubt that this ship could be the one who signaled with so many beautiful lights. We remind our readers that these lights were the angelic creatures flying from the ship. The Hermit then tells us how terrible the ship looks, comparing it to the dead of winter when the young owl catches and eats wolf pups. The pilot calls it ‘fiendish, and wishes to turn back, thinking that there is something supernatural about this ship. The Hermit, perhaps feeling the Mariner’s need through his church office, tells the pilot to keep going. Next week, we will see what happens as the pilot’s boat meets Mariner’s ship, another strange turn in Coleridge’s bizarre tale! Good reading!