The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is a narrative poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, first published in 1798. The title character, an old and weathered sailor, stops a wedding guest and compels him to listen to his tale of woe. A past sailing voyage turns out to be doomed, when an albatross arrives and is killed by the mariner. The ship and crew experience torments, ultimately leaving only the mariner alive (although briefly the dead crew are reanimated by spirits to steer the vessel) and compelled to relate his story to everyone he meets.
The most familiar passage in the poem is "Water, water, every where, And all the boards did shrink;/Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink." The phrase (usually modernizing the spelling to "everywhere") entered the popular lexicon.
==References==
*Coleridge the Albatross in the 1980 book Muppets at Sea is named after the author, while his species and sudden arrival on a ship at sea echoes the poem, with less disastrous results.
*Sesame Street Episode 3606 shows a photo of Admiral Albatross Bird, Big Bird's great-grandfather. While the name references Admiral Byrd, the seafaring albatross again derives from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
*The second episode of Bear in the Big Blue House is titled "Water, Water Everywhere."
*The script to Sesame Street Episode 1362 uses "Water Water Everywhere" to label a street scene.
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Category:Literary References