The Rime of the Ancient Mariner stage of the mariner's curse is lifted after he appreciates the sea creatures swimming in the water. Despite his cursing them as "slimy things" earlier in the poem, he suddenly sees their true beauty and blesses them ("a spring of love gush'd from my heart, and I bless'd them unaware"); suddenly, as he manages to pray, the albatross falls from his neck and his guilt is partially expiated. The bodies of the crew, possessed by good spirits, rise again and help steer the ship. In a trance, the mariner hears two spirits discussing his voyage and penance, and learns that
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor for string orchestra, tambourine, and triangle. Coleridge-Taylor's only large-scale operatic work, "Thelma", was long believed to have been lost. As recently as 1995, Geoffrey Self in his biography of Coleridge-Taylor, "The Hiawatha Man", stated that the manuscript of "Thelma" had not been located, and that the piece may have been destroyed by its creator. While researching for a PhD on the life and music of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Catherine Carr unearthed the manuscripts of "Thelma" in the British Library. She assembled a libretto and catalogued the opera in her thesis, presenting a first critical examination of the work by a thorough