The Rime of the Ancient Mariner of mist and snow"; the south wind that had initially led them from the land of ice now sends the ship into uncharted waters near the equator, where it is becalmed. The sailors change their minds again and blame the mariner for the torment of their thirst. In anger, the crew forces the mariner to wear the dead albatross about his neck, perhaps to illustrate the burden he must suffer from killing it, or perhaps as a sign of regret: Eventually, the ship encounters a ghostly hulk. On board are Death (a skeleton) and the "Night-mare Life-in-Death", a deathly-pale woman,
Kubla Khan of the poem that emphasised the poem's power. In "Road to Xanadu" (1927), a book length study of "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan", John Livingston Lowes claimed that the poems were "two of the most remarkable poems in English". When turning to the background of the works, he argued, "Coleridge as Coleridge, be it said at once, is a secondary moment to our purpose; it is the significant process, not the man, which constitutes our theme. But the amazing "modus operandi" of his genius, in the fresh light which I hope I have to offer, becomes