The Albatross Speaks...

 

The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere is the longest poem by the English Poet 'Samuel Taylor Coleridge’ written in 1797-98 and is undoubtedly my favorite, ever since I first read the modern version in my Tenth Grade. As the version was abridged and only till chapter two, I could not understand the implied meaning at that point of time. Today I am going to write my own interpretation of the albatross that is hanging around our necks.

The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the light-house top.

The beginning is benevolently benign, in almost all the cases in life. It feels that everything is just the way it is meant to be and all the external factors are favorably fluid. This is the most pleasurable part of every journey even the journey called life. But not for long, the ship of life (or anything else for that matter) sails sweet, and the fumbling creeps in like a natural essence. The discomfort leads us to struggle, to march against the odds, and we make our way through the adversaries that the course bestows upon us.

The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!

Then the physical and mental unrest forms a cocoon which by no means seems possible to get away with. The sinking feeling that we get is due to the external factors which our perturbed conscious is not able to bear. Then usually someone comes and guides us (parents, friends, at times complete strangers). They do something they would never do otherwise, they cheer us up and share our sorrows till the Sun shines back on us:

And a good south wind sprung up behind;
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariners' hollo!

But then theses people become the one who according to us, "pester us" and we start getting annoyed with such people. Their very gestures that used to put a smile across our gloomy faces, start troubling us. Eventually the time takes toll on our nerves and we part ways with such people:

God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!--
Why look'st thou so?"--With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

And with this we sow the seeds of dismal. A man can justify his actions and so it never occurs to us that we've done anything wrong (wrong and right are subjected to the perception though) and so the life again sets a smooth sail.

Nor dim nor red, like God's own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:
Then all averred, I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
'Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist. 

Our biggest weakness lies in the fact that we are always looking for a scapegoat. Finding anyone who could be blamed for our misfortunes the biggest feat. Though the course of life is all smooth, any anomaly first forces us to wonder, "who should be blamed for this"?

Ah! well a-day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.

Blaming and getting blamed for anything and everything is what seems to be inevitable and the worst thing that one can do to himself is hanging the Albatross of Guilt. People in all sense will try to look for someone who can be made the scapegoat, but the fact remains in our hands whether we consider our past actions as worthy enough to drown ourselves in misery. The Guilt is the most potent poison, not for it kills from inside, but from upside.

The self same moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.

 The moment we chose to exculpate ourselves (by confessing, or praying or simply vindicating), a new life starts, but this is something that not all of us are capable of doing. We hold on to the past so dearly, that rarely do we live in the present. The resentment eats us while we try to eat our supper, and this just adds to our own woes, while free of guilt we should live; with nothing just to fear.

Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns;
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

 The two controlling emotions have been identified as Love and Fear. Practically speaking there is no other feeling or emotion that governs our lives in major part and we are we what we chose to be with the latter or former art:

Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-Guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

I leave it to thee, to love or fear,

For there's a line, I must not cross

I wrote the words with Love for Fear;

So Speaketh the Albatross.