Simile in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner

As soon as the ship falls apart and sinks to the bottom of the bay, the Mariner is pulled under and almost drowns in the process “like one that hath been seven days drowned.” This is a reference to the previous seven-day curse when he was adrift alone at sea. But by the end, the Hermit and Pilot rescue him rather quickly, as “swift as dreams.”

The Mariner uses images of nature, such as “a noise like a hidden brook” and “the sleeping woods all night,” to describe the unearthly sounds and compare them to the angelic choirs of the previous stanza. Even though this pastoral imagery may seem out of place in an oceanic setting, it evokes a peaceful mood as the Mariner makes his escape.

Sedges are a family of wetland plants that resembles rushes or grasses. Coleridge—like his friend and Lyrical Ballads co-author, William Wordsworth—is among the famous “nature poets” of the late 18th- and early 19th-century England. Many of the descriptions in this section rely on natural imagery that Coleridge and Wordsworth were known for.

The noun “gossameres” in this simile refers to a film of spiderwebs that hang from trees or float in the air, extending the speaker’s association of the approaching ship with death and decay.

Coleridge uses two literary devices in this stanza to emphasize the length of time that the ship was without wind. First, the repetition of "day after day" gives the impression of a lot of time passing by. Second, the simile in the last two lines where the ship is compared to a painting also reinforces the idea that the ship is static and can't actually move at all.