No More Learning

p. I. _The Ancient Mariner_. The marginal analysis which Coleridge
added in reprinting the poem (from the _Lyrical Ballads_) in
_Sibylline Leaves_, has been transferred to this place, where it can
be read without interrupting the narrative in verse.


PART I


An ancient Mariner meeteth three Gallants bidden to a wedding-feast, and
detaineth one.

The Wedding-Guest is spell-bound by the eye of the old sea-faring man, and
constrained to hear his tale.

The Mariner tells how the ship sailed southward with a good wind and fair
weather, till it reached the Line.

The Wedding-Guest heareth the bridal music; but the Mariner continueth his
tale.

The ship driven by a storm toward the south pole.

The land of ice, and of fearful sounds where no living thing was to be
seen.

Till a great sea-bird, called the Albatross, came through the snow-fog, and
was received with great joy and hospitality.

And lo! the Albatross proveth a bird of good omen, and followeth the ship
as it returned northward through fog and floating ice.

The ancient Mariner inhospitably killeth the pious bird of good omen.


PART II


His shipmates cry out against the ancient Mariner, for killing the bird of
good luck.
But when the fog cleared off, they justify the same, and thus make
themselves accomplices in the crime.

The fair breeze continues; the ship enters the Pacific Ocean, and sails
northward, even till it reaches the Line.

The ship hath been suddenly becalmed.

And the Albatross begins to be avenged.

A Spirit had followed them; one of the invisible inhabitants of this
planet, neither departed souls nor angels; concerning whom the learned Jew,
Josephus, and the Platonic Constantinopolitan, Michael Psellus, may be
consulted. They are very numerous, and there is no climate or element
without one or more.

The shipmates, in their sore distress, would fain throw the whole guilt on
the ancient Mariner:

In sign whereof they hang the dead sea-bird round his neck.


PART III


The ancient Mariner beholdeth a sign in the element afar off.

At its nearer approach, it seemeth him to be a ship; and at a dear ransom
he freeth his speech from the bonds of thirst.

A flash of joy;

And horror follows. For can it be a ship that comes onward without wind or
tide?

It seemeth him but the skeleton of a ship.

And its ribs are seen as bars on the face of the setting Sun.

The Spectre-Woman and her Death-mate, and no other on board the skeleton-
ship.

Like vessel, like crew!

Death and Life-in-Death have diced for the ship's crew, and she (the
latter) winneth the ancient Mariner.