Thread: Favorite poems
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Old 03-22-2010, 07:41 AM   #3
Mariner
 
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Join Date: Feb 2010
Location: Pennsylvania, USA
Posts: 357
I've mentioned this before I'm sure, but I'll say it again, it's "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( http://www.online-literature.com/coleridge/646/ ). It's a poem I can read over and over and enjoy every single time. I see the poem as being so relatable (not literally of course, not everyone kills an albatross and watches all of their friends die on a boat lost at sea), but it is relatable in the sense that everyone makes mistakes and has to live with the consequences. I think one of my favorite parts of this poem is when a sort of ghost ship passes the Mariner's ship and a woman and a "Death" (the only two people on the ghost ship) are casting dice to decide if the Mariner lives or dies:

Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the sun,
Like restless gossameres?

Are those her ribs through which the sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman's mate?

Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Nightmare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man's blood with cold.

The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
`The game is done! I've won! I've won!'
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.



*As a side note my avatar is an illustration of this part of the poem.
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