The Rime of the Ancient Mariner to row. The pilot's boy goes crazy and laughs, thinking the mariner is the devil, and cries, "The Devil knows how to row". As penance for shooting the albatross, the mariner, driven by guilt, is forced to wander the earth, telling his story over and over, and teaching a lesson to those he meets: After relaying the story, the mariner leaves, and the wedding guest returns home, and wakes the next morning "a sadder and a wiser man". The poem received mixed reviews from critics, and Coleridge was once told by the publisher that most of the book's sales were
Doldrums of days or weeks. Colloquially, the "doldrums" are a state of inactivity, mild depression, listlessness, or stagnation. The word may be derived from "dold," an archaic term meaning "stupid", and "-rum(s)", a noun suffix found in such words as "tantrum." The doldrums are notably described in Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798), in Patrick O'Brian's novel "Desolation Island" (1978), and in Laura Hillenbrand's non-fiction book "" (2010). Additionally, the Doldrums are a fictional place in Norton Juster's novel "The Phantom Tollbooth" (1961). Noel Gallagher used the term to describe a woman stuck in the decade