On the first occasion, he saw in the distance a marvellous city. A bright sun caused its towers and pinnacles to shine like gold, and the glitter from the numberless windows was like a scattering of diamonds. Banners of all colours fluttered in the breeze, which bore to him the scent of new-mown hay. He was not close enough to glimpse the people of the city, but he felt sure they were a noble race, for who could fail to be noble amongst such beauty? He greatly desired to enter the city and walk its streets, but even as he approached the walls the vision was snatched from him and he awoke. The little bottle of opium stood beside his bed.
He never found his city again, though he saw many strange and wonderful things, most of which escaped his memory directly he awoke. But as time progressed, and his doses of the drug increased, his visions held darkness amidst the beauty. He saw a gorgeous pavilion, set in gardens above a river, but knew it was doomed to imminent destruction. He saw himself on a mountain peak, which appeared to be in the Lake District, and listened to the music of the bells ringing in the valleys below, but the songs the bells sang were songs of death. He saw a young bride entering the castle of her elderly husband, and she was very lovely, but when she turned towards him he saw her eyes were the yellow unblinking eyes of a serpent. All these things he was able to record in his poems, which helped to relieve his pain. Each time his apprehension increased, but he could not abandon his search now.
After a while, waking and dreaming seemed to merge, and he was left unsure which was which. Sometimes when he walked through the streets of London at night, plagued by the insomnia resulting from the opium, he thought he had found his wondrous city at last, only it was no longer marvellous, but sinister and haunted. Evil lurked around every corner, watching him from a distance, just out of his sight, and the people he met (but could not speak to, nor did they speak to him) were not noble heroes and ravishing beauties, but ghosts, who wore the masks of death. He realised he was being punished for his temerity. His awareness of guilt deepened, until he came to feel he had committed a crime so monstrous, so horrible, that even he could not be told what it was. I have blasphemed against the gods by my search, he thought: no, it is far worse than that: my crime somehow threatens the very basis of the universe; and my punishment will be like none that has ever existed before.
He only knew of one way which might allow him to escape from these horrors: he must set them out in a poem, which would tell of a man who is guilty of a terrible crime and justly suffers an equally terrible punishment, but is eventually redeemed by his suffering
and pardoned. Such an ending would provide him with at least some hope of release. But what precise crime would the man in his poem have committed, since he could not
explain it himself? He did not know. So he consulted his closest friend; also a poet, but more down-to-earth in his ideas. And William pondered for a while, and then said, “I was reading the other day about a sailor who was marooned on a desert island by his shipmates, who were disgusted by his wickedness. It appears that sailors regard shooting an albatross as a very wicked act, and also an extremely unlucky one”.
“Thank you”, said Samuel, “I shall take up that idea. My poem will be about a sailor who is punished for shooting an albatross. I shall call him, The Ancient Mariner."
