The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, poem in seven parts by Samuel Taylor Coleridge that first appeared in Lyrical Ballads, published collaboratively by Coleridge and William Wordsworth in 1798. The title character detains one of three young men on their way to a wedding feast and mesmerizes him with the story of his youthful experience at sea—his slaughter of an albatross, the deaths of his fellow sailors, his suffering, and his eventual redemption. On an icebound ship near the South Pole, the mariner and his crew are visited by an albatross, considered a favourable omen. The ship breaks free of the ice and sails north, followed by the giant bird. Then, inexplicably, the mariner shoots and kills it, bringing a curse upon the vessel. Source: britannica.com