These famous lines take on much more meaning from their context. The following line, almost equally famous, is "Nor any drop to drink." The poem is Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (1798-9) and the context is of a ship becalmed on a silent sea, with the sailors dying of thirst. Even more sinister, the crew are under a spell, being punished because one of them, the "ancient mariner" of the title, shot a harmless albatross that used to follow the ship. Eventually all the sailors die except for this one man; they are brought back to a zombie-like half-life, and row the ship back to safety. The mariner is condemned to go around telling the tale of his crime to anyone who will listen, and instructing them to love "both man and bird and beast." The Albatross becomes a symbol both of divine love and man's relationship to the natural world.
