The Rime of the Ancient Mariner – Day 27 of 27

O sweeter than the marriage-feast,
'Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!—
To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!
Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us
He made and loveth all.
The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-Guest
Turned from the bridegroom's door.
He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.

Comments

  1. ScottS-M Identiconcomment_author_IP, $comment->comment_author); }else{echo $gravatar_link;}}*/ ?>

    ScottS-M wrote:

    An interesting poem. Not at all what I was expecting with the ghosts and demons and such. It seems kind of crappy that this guy kills the albatross and the rest of the crew dies for it. I guess he’s supposed to be being punished by having to travel around visiting strange lands but it sounds quite a bit better than being dead to me.

    Wikipedia has some interesting analysis. I didn’t realize Death and the Nightmare were playing dice for the mariner’s life (The naked hulk alongside came, / And the twain were casting dice; / “The game is done! I’ve won! I’ve won!” / Quoth she, and whistles thrice.) when I read it.

    Also from Wikipedia: The theme song from Gilligan’s Island shares the same rhyme scheme as The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It turns out that this poem is in common meter (along with many others [hence the common]). This means that the lines have 8-6-8-6 syllables. I managed to not notice that until now. I’m obviously a poetry pro. Anyway it works out that you can sing the poem to Gilligan’s Island or Amazaing Grace. I’m glad I didn’t find that out til now since the three hour tour really doesn’t help the gravitas of 18th century poetry.

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