Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

- The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The Offense of Godot, or the Common Tragedy

I've seen this sea so many times,
This navy drab of eventide,
These frothy waves athwart their kin,
Both innocent, sublime-

There was a little island once,
Far out, which wore a mantled shore,
And this small place of impotence
Had never suffered life before.
It bore the fruits the sea shan't bear,
Ethereal, the stuff of dreams,
And every day, would watch the sun
Rise up to greet the coming morn.

And every day, the Chariot
Would greet the new misdeed.
Is this, it thought, my legacy?
Is this monotony
The very thing that drives the beast,
The titan, to his knees?
'Twere right for Zeus to silence him,
But lo! as every day I fly
Among the mortals, must I see
That something in the sky?
He long ago that bird did slay!
So why will not that villain die?
The flame-whip cracked-their courses racked;

Some thirty fathoms under them,
A furrow feigned to trail along
A stately ship that crawled upon
Two legs upon the sea.
It flew the colors of the void,
Its hold contained a liner's cause,
Its crew by avarice employed:
It knew alone the ocean's laws.
The captain spoke incontinence;
He drew his pistol, raised it high,
And without cause, as wont to do,
He shot it toward the sky.
The crew all cheered!-

The angels jeered,
Such mourning never knew on high,
And suddenly, the captain saw
A something pierce the sky.
And he had done a hellish thing,
But would not work 'em woe,
For though the angels all averred,
'Twere God Himself who made the bird
To fall from Heaven, lifeless low.
And so did Lucifer object,
And so did that same captain's shard
Make solid not but one bird's fate
But also Heaven's third.

And in the seafoam demons sprawled,
Ungodly creatures, shameful throng-
Their moans o'ertook the sailors' minds
And drove them West along.
The hoary clouds a wicked stare
Cast down on those who fled the sea,
And in its goodness, Heaven shone,
To guide the wicked free.

And in the sea, the vile drowning,
Upon them rained a vile pounding
Of ice and rain and fiery stone
To drive them 'neath the water's cusp;
But as they sank, the little land,
The isle never touched by man,
It could not help but share their woe.

And so a Hell was made below
The seafoam waves, e'er frolicsome,
And so the Chariot oft sighs
When it must break the newer day
And gaze upon the albatross
Aflying through the skies.

This sea-I've seen it many times,
In dreams, as through a spyglass glazed,
But O! may never purge my mind
The mourning moans of mighty days-
May never hope to purge my mind
The mightiest of mournful days.

22 November 2007