"The Sad Tale Of The Ancient Mariner..."

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner was written by an English poet, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, in 1827.

A man going to a wedding is stopped on the street by an old man dressed like a sailor. He refuses to let the man go to the wedding and begins to tell him his tale of a long sea voyage.

Driven off course by a storm, it lands in Antartica, a land of freezing temperatures, ice, and snow. They are in desperate straits.

A sea bird, the Albatross, finds the ship and it leads them away from Antartica and its ice. The Albatross is considered a good omen bringing good luck to the ship. The old sailor shoots the bird with a crossbow. This action is inexplicable. This angers his shipmates and the good south wind that the Albatross brought them disappears and they are becalmed in unknown waters. And then, the fog rolls in and envelops the ship, "A painted ship/Upon a paintd ocean."

The ship runs low on water and the crew is now so angry that it takes the dead Albatross and hangs it around the old sailor's neck.

The First Part of the Rime Of The Ancient Mariner