Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner," is a narrative poem which explains the story of a mariner’s bold journey at sea. While Coleridge uses vivid imagery and symbolism to help the reader envision the story, he is also revealing a religious allegory that reflects many Christian beliefs. Along with many other symbolic elements, Coleridge largely uses the Albatross to represent a spiritual significance throughout his poem. The Albatross is such a meaningful symbol that it is referenced to at the end of six of the seven parts that the poem is divided in to. The poem begins with the Mariner stopping a wedding guest in order to tell him about his journey at sea. He describes a bad storm that drove his ship south towards Antarctica. He and his crew endure extreme conditions where ice and mist surround their ship. It is during this part of his journey that the mariner first encounters the Albatross, saving them from the storm and bearing good omen. “At length did cross an Albatross, thorough the fog it came; As it had been a Christian soul, We hailed it in God’s name.” This is where the reader is first introduced to the idea of the Albatross having a symbolic meaning to Christianity. Coleridge chose to use the Albatross in his poem because they're a large bird, believed by sailors and fishermen to be harbingers of good things during times of duress at sea. This idea is very similar to Christ being born. He was able to help his followers escape their suffering and lead them to heaven, just as the Albatross was able to lead the ship and it’s crew away from the storm and into calm waters. The use of the word “cross” can be taken literally, as the bird crossed in front of the mariner, or it can be taken as a reference to the cross that is a common symbol of Christianity. The first part of the poem ends with the realization that the Mariner killed the Albatross. “With my crossbow, I shot the Albatross.” Coleridge specified that the Mariner used a crossbow to kill the Albatross because it is a symbol of the cross that Christ died on. The poem continues into the second part, where the reader begins to see the Mariner’s struggles, and the symbolic meaning o