Areopagus Volume XX

Seven short lessons every someday.

Welcome one and all to the twentieth Volume of Areopagus. Two hundred and fifty years ago today the great poet, writer, and critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born. There's no better moment, then, to recall his Rime of the Ancient Mariner:

Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.
​
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

Sumptuous. And, with Coleridge's lyric genius to rouse our minds and hearts, here we go...