Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Albatross
And a good south wind sprung up behind,
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!
“God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?”—“With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.”
Coleridge—Ancient Mariner. Pt. I. St. 18.
Great albatross!—the meanest birds
Spring up and flit away,
While thou must toil to gain a flight,
And spread those pinions grey;
But when they once are fairly poised,
Far o’er each chirping thing
Thou sailest wide to other lands,
E’en sleeping on the wing.
Chas. G. Leland—Perseverando.