O sleep ! it is a gentle thing. Beloved from pole to pole! To Mary Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven That slid into my soul. 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 I had died in sleep, And was a blessed ghost. And soon I heard a roaring wind; It did not come anear; But with its sound it shook the sails, That were so thin and sere. The upper air burst into life! And a hundred fire-flags sheen, To and fro they were hurried about! And to and fro and in and out, The wan stars danced between. And the coming wind did roar more loud, And the sails did sigh like sedge; And the rain poured down from one black cloud; The Moon was at its edge. The thick black cloud was cleft, and still The Moon was at its side: Like waters shot from some high crag, The lightning fell with never a jag, A river steep and wide. The loud wind never reached the ship, Yet now the ship moved on! Beneath the lightning and the Moon The dead men gave a groan. They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose, Nor spake, nor moved their eyes: It had been strange, even in a dream, To have seen the dead men rise. The helmsman steered, the ship moved on; Yet never a breeze up-blew; The mariners all 'gan work the ropes, Where they were wont to do; They raised their limbs like lifeless tools- We were a ghastly crew. The body of my brother's son Stood by me knee to knee: The body and I pulled at one rope, But he said nought to me. "I fear thee ancient Mariner!" Be calm thou Wedding-Guest! Twas not those souls that fled in pain, Which to the corses came again, But a troop of spirits blessed. For when it dawned -they dropped their arms, And clustered round the mast; Sweet sounds rose slowly from their mouths, And from their bodies passed. Around,around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now one by one. Sometimes a dropping from the sky I heard the sky-lark sing; Sometimes all little birds that are, How they seemed to fill the sea and air With their sweet jargoning! And now 'twas like all instruments, Now like a lonely flute; And now it is an angel's song, That makes the heavens be mute. It ceased; yet still the sails made on A pleasant noise till noon, A noise like of a hidden brook In the leafy month of June, That to the sleeping woods all night Singeth a quiet tune. Till noon we quietly sailed on, Yet never a breeze did breathe: Slowly and smoothly went the ship, Moved onward from beneath. Under the keel nine fathom deep, From the land of mist and snow, The Spirit slid : and it was he That made the ship to go. The sails at noon left off their tune, And the ship stood still also. The Sun right up above the mast, Had fixed her to the ocean: But in a minute she 'gan stir, With a short uneasy motion- Backwards and forwards half her length With a short uneasy motion. Then like a pawing horse let go, She made a sudden bound: It flung the blood into my head, And I fell down in a swound. How long in that same fit I lay, I have not to declare; But e'er my living life returned, I heard and in my soul discerned Two voices in the air. "Is it he?" quoth one, "Is this the man? By him who died on cross, With his cruel bow he laid full low The harmless Albatross. The Spirit who bideth by himself In the land of mist and snow, He loved the bird that loved the man Who shot him with his bow." The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew: Quoth he" The man hath penance done, And penance more will do."
Coleridge’s universe is vital: full of stir and movement and spiritual presences. The eighteenth century, by way of Newtonian physics, had presented a mechanical universe, run like clockwork, according to “regular motions” . The Deist God existed as a distant applicator of the workings of the machine, the Divine Clockmaker who designed the clock and left it to run. So when Coleridge writes:
The upper air burst into life! And a hundred fire-flags sheen, To and fro they were hurried about! And to and fro and in and out, The wan stars danced about.
he is consciously reacting against the mechanical lifelessness of the Newtonian heavens.
The Romantics were fascinated by Science; for instance, by the new understanding of electricity and electro-magnetism.. The idea re-emerging in the poetry of Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley was of spirit interacting with matter. The discovery of Electricity, an unseen power with material effects, suggested the complementary association of universal Spirit with created Nature acting upon the mind. Wordsworth gives the idea expression in “Tintern Abbey” in these wonderful lines:
" And I have felt A presence that disturbs me with the joy Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime Of something far more deeply interfused, Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man: A motion and a spirit that impels All thinking things, all objects of all thought, And rolls through all things.
What Coleridge does in “The Rime ” is to particularise within the unfolding of the poem what Wordsworth gives expression to in these lines of the interfusion of spirit, Nature and human thought; this is done by underlaying the story of the poem with a mythic depth. There is a bringing together of Christian and pagan elements ; or, perhaps more truly by demonstrating the development of Christian thought from pagan ideas. The Pagan worshipped- Sun, that which creates life, is made to symbolise the Christian God; the “moving” Moon of pagan mythology is given renewed life expressing the redemptive powers of the Blessed Virgin. (Male and female, it might be said, are given a living connection within the godhead which they lack in Milton’s Protestant epic “Paradise Lost”). Towards the end of Part 5 we are introduced to conversing spirits of the Polar region as a further element of the poem’s mythology.
It is the quality of the poetry that gives potent power to the mythology. This is invoked by the opening stanzas in explaining the renewing sleep of the mariner:
To Mary, Queen the praise be given! She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven, That slid into my soul.
We notice the way in which the restorative power of sleep is created by the preponderance of s-sounds and especially by the alliterative “slid” that suggests the gradual peaceful movement of restoration. The redemptive movement that brought the previous part to and end with the water-snakes being blessed by the “Spring of love gushed through my heart” is confirmed first by sleep , then dreams of moisture and then the blessing of rain. Given that one of the most powerful effects of the mariners’ physical condition has been that of a desperate feeling of thirst ( “with throats unslaked, with black lips baked”) we empathise as readers with the joyful release of the rain on the mariner. And the release from burden is emphasised by turning the fearful implications of ghostliness to one of blessing:
I was so light- almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.
A similar transformation is made of the crew members where their corpses become spirits guiding the ship. The astonishing development here is to show these spirits not just in action but as a worshipping gathering. Hence, the wonderful lines:
"Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths, And from their bodies passed. Around,around, flew each sweet sound, Then darted to the Sun; Slowly the sounds came back again, Now mixed, now, one by one."
A wondrous sense is created of sound being circulated and rising to the Sun and then being renewed and returned. To emphasise the importance of what he is seeking to convey Coleridge adds two stanzas on the nature of the sound, comparing it to a profusion of bird song and then to a sounding orchestra followed by the single note of a flute. This rises to the finale of “an angel’s song That makes the heavens be mute”. Coleridge is creating not so much a poetry of spiritual enchantment but a poetry in which transcendent spiritual life, extended throughout the universe, is given expression, so that we as humans are made receptive to other spiritual possibilities within a universe radiated by spiritual life.
Towards the end of the Part there is a further development in the mythological aspect with the re-introduction of the Polar Spirit. This spirit is linked to the Southern Ocean where the ship had earlier ventured when it was visited by the Albatross and it is this Spirit which seeks vengeance for the killing of the Albatross. In his marginal gloss which he added to the poem for further elucidation Coleridge has written alongside the conversation between spirits ending the part:
The Polar spirit’s fellow daemons, the invisible inhabitants of the element, take part in his wrong; and two of them relate, one to the other, that penance, long and heavy for the ancient Mariner hath been accorded to the Polar Spirit who returneth southward.
This conversation enables the ending of the part to bring together the mythological element with the spiritual direction of the poem. The two spirits in their talk bring out not only the need of accountability for evil but also of mercy for the redeemed soul performing penance, with the concluding stanza bringing out with a beautiful image, the tender compassion of the merciful spirit.
"The other was a softer voice, As soft as honey-dew: Quoth he: "The man hath penance done, And penance more will do."