Rime_Of_The_Ancient_Mariner

Rime Of The Ancient Mariner Summary Three young men are walking together to a wedding, when one of them is detained by a grizzled old sailor. The young Wedding-Guest angrily demands that the Mariner let go of him, and the Mariner obeys. But the young man is transfixed by the ancient Mariner's "glittering eye" and can do nothing but sit on a stone and listen to his strange tale. The Mariner says that he sailed on a ship out of his native harbor--"below the kirk, below the hill, / Below the lighthouse top"--and into a sunny and cheerful sea. Hearing bassoon music drifting from the direction of the wedding, the Wedding-Guest imagines that the bride has entered the hall, but he is still helpless to tear himself from the Mariner's story. The Mariner recalls that the voyage quickly darkened, as a giant storm rose up in the sea and chased the ship southward. Quickly, the ship came to a frigid land "of mist and snow," where "ice, mast-high, came floating by"; the ship was hemmed inside this maze of ice. But then the sai! lors encountered an Albatross, a great sea bird. As it flew around the ship, the ice cracked and split, and a wind mariner, rime, ship, sailors, sea, wedding-guest, out, albatross, water, men, mariner's, unable, slimy, rose, quickly, one, ice, great, glittering, eye, death, dead, creatures, bird, across, young, woman, wind, wedding, waters, surrounded, surface, speak, snow, snakes, sight, shadow