The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and eventually reaches Antarctic waters. An albatross appears and leads them out of the ice jam where they are stuck, but even as the albatross is praised by the ship's crew, the mariner shoots the bird: The crew is angry with the mariner, believing the albatross brought the south wind that led them out of the Antarctic. However, the sailors change their minds when the weather becomes warmer and the mist disappears: They soon find that they made a grave mistake in supporting this crime, as it arouses the wrath of spirits who then pursue the ship "from the land
Kubla Khan these wonderful lines as the voice of Poesy itself." Critics at the end of the 19th century favoured the poem and placed it as one of Coleridge's best works. When discussing "Christabel", "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan", an anonymous reviewer in the October 1893 "The Church Quarterly Review" claimed, "In these poems Coleridge achieves a mastery of language and rhythm which is nowhere else conspicuously evident in him." In 1895, Andrew Lang reviewed the "Letters of Coleridge" in addition to Coleridge's "Kubla Khan", "Christabel" and "Rime of the Ancient Mariner", saying: "all these poems are 'miraculous;' all