Samuel Taylor Coleridge holds on to those precious moments when loneliness is a problem for tomorrow.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge visited Germany in September 1798 in company with the Wordsworths, staying until the following July. He would later remember Germany as ‘a bright spot of sunshine’ in his life, but at the time he was lonely and homesick, and the death of his little son Berkeley on February 10th added to his griefs. These verses were included in a letter home to his wife Sarah on April 23rd.
In Coleridge’s epic poem, the Ancient Mariner, amid the horrors of a ship of dead men, sees a sight both beautiful and surreal.
The Ancient Mariner has wantonly killed an albatross, and brought death and destruction on his ship. Surrounded now by the dead bodies of the crew, a new and ghostly sight meets his eyes.