Wordsworth also has recorded an account of the inception of the poem: "The Ancient Mariner was founded on a strange dream, which a friend of Coleridge had, who fancied he saw a skeleton ship, with figures in it. We had both determined to write some poetry for a monthly magazine, the profits of which were to defer the expenses of a little excursion we were to make together. The Ancient Mariner was intended for this periodical, but was too long. I had very little share in the composition of it, for I soon found the style of Coleridge and myself would not assimilate. Beside the lines (in the fourth part)--"And thou art long, and lank, and brown,/As in the ribbed sea-sand--" I wrote the stanza (in the first part) "He holds him with his glittering eye--/ The Wedding-Guest stood still,/ And listens like a three-years child:/ The Mariner hath his will.--" and four or five lines more in different parts of the poem, which I could not now point out. The idea of shooting an albatross was mine; for I had been reading Shelvock's Voyages, which probably Coleridge never saw. I also suggested the reanimation of the dead bodies, to work the ship."

It should be noted that Coleridge revised most of his poems after their first publication; the poems printed here are taken from the 1834 text, which is the final outcome, in many cases, of a sustained creative process. The 1798 text of The Ancient Mariner was deliberately archaic in diction, and spelling; most of the archaisms were removed for the 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads; the Malta voyage, 1804-6, produced some additional lines and increased precision of phrase; marginal glosses were added in Sibylline Leaves, 1817.

The argument belongs to the 1798 text only. In 1817 Coleridge replaced the Argument by an epigraph taken from Thomas Burnet's Archaeologiae Philosophicae. Translated it reads: "I can easily believe, that there are more Invisible than Visible Beings in the Universe; but who will declare to us the Family of all these, and acquaint us with the Agreements, Differences, and peculiar Talents which are to be found among them? What do they do and where do they live? It is true, human Wit has always desired a Knowledge of these Things, though it has never yet attained it. I will own that it is very profitable, sometimes to contemplate in the Mind, as in a Draught, the Image of the greater and better World; lest the Soul being accustomed to the Trifles of this present Life, should contract itself too much, and altogether rest in mean Cogitations; but, in the mean Time, we must take Care to keep to the Truth, and observe Moderation, that we may distinguish certain Things, and Day from Night."

[Marginal Note Begins]
An ancient Mariner
meeteth three
Gallants bidden to a
wedding-feast, and
detaineth one.
[Note Ends] Back to Line