Epigraph

The ice was here, the ice was there,

The ice was all around:

It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,

Like noises in a swound!

At length did cross an albatross,

Thorough the fog it came;

As if it had been a Christian soul,

We hailed it in God"s name.

(….)In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,

It perched for vespers nine;

Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,

Glimmered the white Moon-shine.

"God save thee, ancient Mariner!

From the fiends, that plague thee thus!

Why look"st thou so?' - With my cross-bow

I shot the albatross.

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (1834)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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