Read Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, lines 582-590.What must the Mariner continue to do throughout the rest of his...

Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem, The Rime of
the Ancient Mariner, is an example early Romantic writing. Of the
characteristics of Romantic writing, this poem has most of them, including the
supernatural and a reverence for nature.

Because the
Mariner has unthinking killed the albatross (a large sea bird), his judgment is harsh as
he watches his shipmates die and almost dies himself. It is only when he begins to feel
an appreciation for the sea creatures in the water that he is redeemed. However, the
rest of his life must be spent in penance, which comes to him in an unusual manner—one
that is impossible to ignore.

When the Hermit (the holy
man) questions the Mariner (who is pulled out of the water nearly dead) about who he
is:

Forthwith
this frame of mine was wrenched / With a woeful agony, / Which forced me to begin my
tale; / And then it left me free.  (lines
578-581)

This, then, is the
Mariner's penance. As he acts with the Wedding Guest he meets, when the Mariner meets
someone who needs to hear his tale—in essence, to take his responsibility to nature
seriously—the Mariner must tell his
tale.

Since
then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my
ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me
burns.

I pass, like night, from land to land;
I
have strange power of speech;
That moment that his face I see,
I
know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.   (lines
582-590)

The Mariner no
longer sails, but moves from one place to another to tell his prophetic tale, revealing
the Romantic writers' concern for nature (seen also in the work of other Romantic
writers: Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley, Keats, etc.). When the Mariner sees the face of the
one that must hear his message, his heart burns—he is in emotional
and physical pain. Only when he finishes his tale does the pain
receded. In this, too, we see the hand of the
supernatural.

The Mariner's final words to the Wedding
Guest summarize the seaman's message:

readability="9">

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To
thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both
man and bird and beast.

The
Mariner is saying that prayer and love go hand in hand, but extend not just to man, but
to nature: "bird and beast." And the task that the Mariner carries out seems to have had
the desired effect. The tale closes with the change that has come over the Wedding
Guest, as he carries the new responsibility of caring for the world in a way he had not
known before:

readability="6">

A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the
morrow morn.

The Wedding
Guest is sadder but wiser as he (like the Mariner) wakes the next day with new purpose
in life.