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title: "A portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner"
---

# A portrait of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

*Ah! well a-day! what evil looks**Had I from old and young!**Instead of the cross, the Albatross**About my neck was hung.*

 I continue here with the occasional series of stories in *ACAP Latest News* that covers the appearance of albatrosses and petrels in art and literature.  This time we revisit a famous poem that led to the word albatross being used metaphorically “to mean a psychological burden that feels like a curse” ([click here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albatross_(metaphor))).

 [The Rime of the Ancient Mariner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rime_of_the_Ancient_Mariner) by romantic poet [Samuel Taylor Coleridge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Taylor_Coleridge) (21 October 1772 – 25 July 1834) written over 1797–1798 is probably the most-well-known [poem](http://archive.org/stream/rimeancientmari06colegoog#page/n3/mode/2up) that includes an albatross with its central theme.

 During a recent visit to the United Kingdom’s [National Portrait Gallery](http://www.npg.org.uk/) in London I came across an oil-on-canvas painting dated 1795 (when Coleridge was 22 or 23) by the Dutch artist Peter Vandyke (1729-1799).

 ![](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Posters_Books/Coleridge.jpg) 

 Samuel Taylor Coleridge in the National Portrait Gallery

 Coleridge wrote his famous poem near Watchet in the UK’s Somerset where he is commemorated by a statue of the albatross-bedecked mariner on the harbour side that was unveiled in September 2003.  It is said that Coleridge was influenced by the sight of the town to write his Rime ([click here](http://www.watchetmuseum.co.uk/coleridge.php)).

 ![](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Posters_Books/Ancient_mariner_statue_Watchett_Somerset.jpg) 

 The Somerset Mariner statue, Watchet, Somerset, UK by sculptor Alan Herriot

 The cottage that Coleridge rented nearby where he wrote both the Rime and his equally famous poem [Kubla Khan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubla_Khan) is now a [National Trust](http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/) property open to the public ([click here](http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/coleridge-cottage/)).

 ![](https://www.acap.aq/images/stories/acap/Posters_Books/Coleridge_Cottage.jpg) 

 Coleridge Cottage, in Nether Stowey, Somerset, UK

 I tip my hat to a man who also wrote these beautiful lines:

 *In Xanadu did Kubla Khan*  
*A stately pleasure-dome decree*  
*Where Alph, the sacred river, ran*  
*Through caverns measureless to man*  
*Down to a sunless sea.*

 - written after an opium-drugged dream in 1797 but not published until 1816.

 *John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 August 2015*