Blood and Ice

“And a good south wind sprung up behind;

The Albatross did follow,

And every day, for food or play,

Came to the mariners’ hollo!

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 lookst thou so? — With my crossbow

I shot the ALBATROSS!”

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798