FIRST VOICE "But tell me,tell me! speak again, Thy soft response renewing- What makes that ship drive on so fast? What is the ocean doing?" SECOND VOICE Still as slave before his lord, The ocean hath no blast; His great bright eye most silently Up to the moon is cast- If he may know which way to go; For she guides him smooth or grim. See, brother, see! how graciously She looketh down on him." FIRST VOICE "But why drives on that ship so fast, Without or wave or wind?" SECOND VOICE "The air is cut away before, And closes from behind. Fly, brother fly! more high,more high! Or we shall be belated: For slow and slow that ship will go, When the Mariner's trance is abated. I woke, and we were sailing on As in a gentle weather; Twas night, calm night, the moon was high; The dead men stood together. All stood together on the deck, For a charnel-dungeon fitter: All fixed on me their stony eyes, That in the moon did glitter. The pang, the curse, with which they died, Had never passed away: I could not draw my eyes from theirs, Nor turn them up to pray. And now this spell was snapt: once more I viewed the ocean green, And looked far forth, yet little saw Of what had else been seen- Like one that on a lonesome road Doth walk in fear and dread, And having once turned round walks on, And turns no more his head; Because he knows a frightful fiend Doth close behind him tread. But soon there breathed a wind on me, Nor sound nor motion made: Its path was not upon the sea, In ripple or in shade. It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek Like a meadow gale of spring- It mingled strangely with my fears, Yet it felt like a welcoming. Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship, Yet she sailed softly too: Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze- On me alone it blew. Oh! dream of joy is this indeed The light-house top I see? Is this the hill? Is this the kirk? Is this mine own countree? We drifted o'er the harbour-bar, And I with sobs did pray- Oh let me be awake, my God! Or let me sleep alway. The harbour-bar was clear as glass, So smoothly it was strewn! And on the bay the moonlight lay, And the shadow of the Moon. The rock shone bright, the kirk no less, That stands above the rock: The moonlight steeped in silentness The steady weathercock. And the bay was white with silent light, Till rising from the same, Full many shapes, that shadows were, In crimson colours came. A little distance from the prow Those crimson shadows were: I turned my eyes upon the deck- Oh, Christ what saw I there! Each corse flat, lifeless and flat, And by the holy rood! A man all light, a seraph-man, On every corse there stood. This seraph- band, each waved his hand, No voice did they impart- No voice;but oh, the silence sank Like music on my heart. But soon I heard the dash of oars, I heard the Pilot's cheer; My head was turned perforce away And I saw the boat appear. The Pilot and the pilot's boy, I heard them coming fast: Dear Lord in heaven! it was a joy The dead men could not blast. I saw a third- I heard his voice: It is the Hermit good! He singeth loud his godly hymns That he makes in the wood. He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood.
It seems to me there are two ways readers might regard Part VI. If the poem is seen as simply story, plotting a development from a wicked misdeed, with gothic incident, spells, supernatural visitations thrown in to create a tale of fantastic incident, then the ending of the poem over this part and the next might seem a malingering. What has to be done is after all becoming clear: the mariner has to be got home, an exit has to be arranged for the corpses, a moral neatly relayed. For such readers Part VI might seem unduly extended. But increasingly I have become aware that this is a spiritual poem in every sense, that it is an organic poetic unity and I am more and more impressed by the way in which mythological and cosmic elements give depth to the redemptive process. The mariner- and we along with him -has to learn that his crime is meaningless destruction; it is something that goes against not only the natural order but the spiritual interconnectedness of living beings. The conclusion has therefore to be given time for working out.
In terms of the poem’s unity note how effects are repeated. Stanzas and phrases are repeated, recalling earlier stages of the (spiritual) journey. The mariner although on the way towards home and redemption has flashbacks which threaten to immerse him. Once again he cannot escape the accusing eyes of the dead, he is trapped by the inability to pray, he is, as before ( in Part 1), like one pursued by a foe. In effect, Coleridge is maintaining dramatic interest as we shift between the possibilities of the mariner being trapped and finding escape. An example of this is the invocation of Christ ( another echo, this time from Part 2) which leads us to expect the worst when in fact, this time, it leads to a wondrous seraphic visitation.
Coleridge knew -if anyone knew-that the road to spiritual redemption is not linear. Malcolm Guite in his marvellous book on the poem (Mariner) and Coleridge’s life which I would encourage every reader interested in this series of posts to read, links these reversions to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Guite connects this condition with the agonies and self- recriminations the opium- addicted Coleridge had to contend with. It is true when Coleridge first wrote the poem (which appeared with Wordsworth’s in the first edition of the Lyrical Ballads) he was not an addict but Guite argues that imaginative fore-seeing is one of the powers at work within the poem. It is certainly remarkable the extent to which the mariner’s journey towards redemption reflects that of the great poet. as Guite so effectively shows..
The Part re-invokes the spiritual and redemptive qualities the Moon retains throughout the poem (see earlier parts of the discussion):
See, brother,see! how graciously She looketh down on him.
The supernatural aspect is brought out by the seraphic -band:
A man all light, a seraph-man, On every corse there stood. This seraph -band, each waved his hand, No voice did they impart- No voice; but oh! the silence sank Like music on my heart.
This has a spiritual beauty underlined by the redemptive effect of a silence compared with the power of music. The passage seems to me to possess a wondrous quality which is nevertheless connected with a practical purpose. The ship having reached the harbour-bay would normally signal by light to the harbour pilot for guidance for entering the harbour walls.
The Part then continues the marvellous interplay of story with spiritual symbolism, with the regressive pull of defeat mixed with the progressive urge towards redemption encouraged by the ever present gracious Moon and the startling supernatural sublimity of the seraphic presence. It ends with a note of hope- on the mariner spying the Hermit on the pilot boat with the inevitable final recall of the last stanza to the (always capitalised) Albatross:
He'll shrieve my soul, he'll wash away The Albatross's blood.