Gustave Doré, “Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
Monday
For those following our plumbing travails, I can report that we once again have water and are taking showers, washing dishes, and doing the laundry. To cite an e. e. cummings image, all is puddle-wonderful again, with the puddles being confined to the places where they are supposed to be. There will be city water bills to pay now that we’re no longer getting our water from our lake, but that seems a small price to pay.
The passage that comes to mind is the Ancient Mariner’s ecstasy over the peace that follows his albatross depression. Recall that he has been without water ever since he gratuitously killed the bird, so much so that one encounters such horrific images as
And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.
Once he blesses the water snakes, however—in other words, once he acknowledges his connection with God’s creation in all its manifestations—he feels whole again. The wholeness is symbolized through sleep, a feeling of lightness, and (most important for me at the moment) water:
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
That slid into my soul.
The silly buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.
My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.
I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light—almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessed ghost.
Yes, our relief feels something like this.
