Doomwright

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner — DOOMWRIGHT

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER — album cover, the mariner on deck with the dead albatross hung round his neck, the crew recoiling, rendered as a sea-corroded Doré engraving
Oceanic atmospheric black metal / blackened death-doom · after Coleridge, 1798

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

A mariner kills the albatross that guided his ship, and the sea will not forgive it. Two hundred men fall dead; he alone is left to outlive them — and to tell it, forever.

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The voyage, in full

The Argument

A ship drives south into a world of ice and fog, and an albatross comes out of the white to guide it — welcomed, fed, an omen on the wing. Then the mariner lifts his bow and kills it, for no reason he can name, and lets the horror in.

The wind dies. The sea goes flat and rotting under a burning sun, and the crew hang the dead bird round his neck in place of a cross. Out of the dead calm a spectre-ship comes crawling, and on its deck Death and the pale woman Life-in-Death throw dice for the men. She wins him. One by one, two hundred throats fall silent — and he is cursed to live.

Alone with the dead for seven days, he watches sea-snakes move in the moonlit water, and something in him blesses them unaware. The spell breaks, and the albatross slides from his neck and sinks like lead into the sea.

He is carried home by a crew of animated dead and pulled from the wreck by a hermit — and from that day he must wander the earth, stopping strangers who cannot refuse to hear the tale. The telling is the penance, and it has no end.

He was punished not with death, but with life — and the telling has no end.

Eight movements

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, in full

One voice carries the whole tale — the Mariner, in weathered rasp, with the deep growl of the sea and the dead beneath him. Only once does another speak: Life-in-Death, one cold verdict from the spectre-ship.

IThe Wedding Guestwords
Three men walked toward the wedding fire One never reached the door A grey hand closed upon his arm A voice he could not ignore The music called him in to dance The bride was on the stair But the old man's eye had fixed him now And held him breathing there There was a ship, the grey mouth said A sail, a southward tide And you will hear before the end What crossed me, and what died He could not turn, he could not leave He could not close his ears The tale had sunk its hook in him And drew him down the years
IIThe Bird of Good Omenwords
We drove below the world's cold edge Where ice made walls of green No shape of man, no shape of beast In all that white was seen And through the fog a white bird came And ate the food we gave It steered us through the cracking floes It rode the following wave Nine days it came, a thing of grace An omen on the wing The ice split open where it flew The good south wind would sing I raised the bow. I do not know What turned my hand to sin I shot the bird of good omen And let the horror in
IIIThe Curse Beginswords
At first they cursed me for the deed A hell-thing, they all cried To kill the bird that made the breeze And brought the wind our side But when the fog and mist withdrew They praised the thing I'd done Twas right, they said, to kill the bird That brought the fog and sun And so they made themselves my kin In blood they did not spill The wind dropped dead, the sails fell slack The sea went flat and still No breath, no breeze, no motion left The silence like a curse And round my neck, in place of cross They hung the albatross
IVWater, Waterwords
Day upon day upon day the same No wind to lift a thread A ship of wood and dying men Nailed still to an ocean's bed Water, water, every where And the salt-swollen timbers groan Water, water, every where And a thirst that burns the bone The deep turned foul beneath the keel The tide would not renew And things with pale and boneless limbs Crawled up the rotting blue Our tongues were coal, our throats were shut No word, no prayer, no thirst-cry heard And every man's dead eye had turned To me, and to the hanging bird
VDeath and Life-in-Deathwords
A speck, a mist, a shape it grew It crossed a sea with no wind through Its planks were bare, its sails were bone The sun bled through its side And on its deck two figures played At dice, across the tide Life-in-Death The game is done. I've won. I've won. The man is mine to keep. Death The rest are mine. Two hundred throats, and not one groan No word to mark the cost And I was left with all the dead And every soul it crossed
VIThe Blessingwords
Seven days, seven nights I saw that curse And yet I could not die The dead men lay, the wide sea rotted Beneath a burning sky Beyond the shadow of the ship I watched the water-snakes They moved in tracks of shining white And blue and golden flakes No words I had could name their light And something broke inside the drought A love I did not choose to give Rose up, and my dry mouth prayed out And from my neck, the weight let go The thing I could not carry more The albatross slid off and sank Like lead, without a sound, offshore
VIIThe Dead Men Worked the Ropeswords
The dead men gave a groan, they stirred They rose without a word They raised their limbs like lifeless tools No breath, no soul, no lord The Dead Crew We were the hands that worked the ropes We were the crew of clay The spirits moved us south again Toward the breaking day The wind that had no breath or sound It drove me toward the shore I saw my own dark harbour rise The lighthouse and the door And then the ship went down like lead The bay was still and wide The dead sank with it, all at once And I alone did ride
VIIIA Sadder and a Wiser Manwords
A hermit's boat came through the swell And dragged me from the tide He asked what manner of thing I was And the whole black tale came wide And ever since, at a hour I don't choose The burning starts again The story climbs into my throat And will not rest till then From land to land I pass like night I know each face I'm sent The moment that I meet his eye I know who must repent He turned from the unopened door No feast, no bride, no horn A sadder and a wiser man He rose the morrow morn
The Illuminations

Seven plates, recovered from the sea

An old sea-worn mariner gripping a young wedding guest by the hand outside a lit cathedral, a wedding party glowing within, rendered as a salt-damaged Doré engraving
The tale sinks its hook, and the guest cannot leave.I · The Wedding Guest
A small ship in a channel of towering ice cliffs, a single luminous albatross gliding over it, as a sea-corroded engraving
An omen on the wing, over the cracking ice.II · The Bird of Good Omen
The mariner on deck with the dead albatross hung round his neck, the crew recoiling and pointing, as a drowned Doré engraving
In place of the cross, they hung the albatross.III · The Curse Begins
A skeletal Death and a pale woman dicing on the deck of a vast spectral ship, a small ship below on a still moonlit sea, as a salt-stained engraving
Death and Life-in-Death, dicing for the crew.V · Death and Life-in-Death
The mariner leaning from the ship's rail toward glowing water-snakes coiling in a moonlit sea, as a sea-corroded engraving
He blessed them unaware — and the weight let go.VI · The Blessing
The dead crew risen and working the ropes and rigging of the ship under a storm-lit sky, the mariner standing among them, as a drowned engraving
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools.VII · The Dead Men Worked the Ropes
The ragged mariner on a rocky shore compelling a listener to hear him, a distant ship on the pale horizon, as a salt-damaged Doré engraving
From land to land I pass like night.VIII · A Sadder and a Wiser Man