Poem That Paid for a Holiday.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17762, 9 December 1929, Page 7

Poem That Paid for a Holiday.

« "The familiar story of the old lady who didn’t like "Hamlet" because it was too full of familiaV-quotations' might with •equal appropriateness be told of "The ■Rime of the Ancient Mariner," writes Alice Robson, B.Sc., in the "Yorkshire Evening News.”

"How many of its phrases are now part •of our common speech! ‘Red as a rose is she,’ ‘A sadder and a wiser man,’ ‘The leafy month of June,’ ‘Water, water •everywhere, nor any drop to drink,’ and, -above all—-

‘He prayeth best who loveth best All things both great and small.’

"But how many of us know the story of the experience through which the old •sailor had passed before he was able to understand that simple truth? He had lived through tempests and calms, extremes of heat and cold, perils of iceberg and floe, and he had known the most appalling loneliness. The last survivor of •the crew, he had seen his mates drop

dead one by one, cuising him as they fell. ‘0 Wedding Guest! this soul hath been Alone on the wide, wide sea; So lonely ’twas, that God Himself Scarce seemed there to be.’

"It is a curious thing that one of the greatest imaginative poems in our literature should have been .planned in order to pay the expenses of a holiday! Here is Wordsworth’s account of its origin :

" ‘ln the autumn of 1797 Mr Coleridge, my sister, and myself started from Alfoxden . . . with a view to visit Linton and the Valley of Stones near to it; and as our united 'funds wore very small we agreed to defray the expense of the tour by writing a poem, to be sent to the "New Monthly Magazine.” In the course of this walk was planned the poem the "Ancient Mariner,” founded on a dream, as Mr Coleridge said, of his friend, Mr Cruickshank.’ ”