We are told that at the end of Part IV of the poem, the Mariner
notices the beauty of the water snakes in the sea surrounding the ship. It is clear that the
Mariner is attracted to them for their beauty and vibrant colours and is overwhelmed by what he
sees, so much that he blesses them without knowing it:
O happy, living things! no
tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A
spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them
unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on
me,
And I blessed them
unaware.
The effect of his blessing of
the water snakes is dramatic and immediate - he finds that he can pray again and the albatross
falls from his neck and falls into the sea, indicating that now the Mariner has blessed a living
thing of Nature, this off-sets his crime in killing the albatross, and thus he is able to pray
and the bird, the symbol of his guilt, falls away. Likewise this crucial event is what gets the
ship back on course - the Mariner falls into a deep sleep, yet when he wakes, he finds that the
ship is being sailed by the reanimated corpses of the crew. Eventually the Mariner realises that
a troop of angels is in control of the ship. He falls into a trance, during which the ship
magically arrives back at his own country.
Thus it is the act of
blessing the water snakes that initiates the process of starting the ship moving again and
getting the Mariner back home, with the curse upon him ended.
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