Glyn Hughes' SQUASHED WRITERS ALL THE BOOKS YOU THINK YOU OUGHT TO HAVE READ In their own words... but magically Squashed into half-hour short stories...

The Squashed version of
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
by
Samuel Taylor Coleridge
1798

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three,
'By thy long beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?

'The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Southward aye we fled.

It grew wondrous cold :
And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.

At length did cross an Albatross:
Through the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God's name.

Why look'st though so? –
With my crossbow
I shot the Albatross.

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
Four times fifty living men,
(and I heard not sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

I looked to heaven, and tried to pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea

To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from Heaven,
Beneath the lightening and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan

The mariners all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;

'O shrive me, shrive me, holy man!'
The Hermit crossed his brow.
'Say quick,' quoth he, 'I bid thee say-
What manner of man art thou?'

Since then I pass from land to land,
Till the agony returns,
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

And now the Mariner is gone,
The Wedding-Guest forlorn,
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn