Coleridge, when he wrote to Cottle offering him the Lyrical Ballads,
affirms that "the volumes offered to you are, to a certain degree, ONE
WORK IN KIND" {104a} (Reminiscences, p. 179); and Wordsworth declares,
"I should not, however, have requested this assistance, had I not
believed that the poems of my Friend would in a great measure HAVE THE
SAME TENDENCY AS MY OWN, {104b} and that though there would be found a
difference, there would be found no discordance in the colours of our
style; as our opinions on the subject of poetry do almost entirely
coincide" (Preface to Lyrical Ballads, 1800).

It is a point carefully to be borne in mind that we have the explicit
and contemporary authority of both poets that their aim was the same.

There are difficulties in the way of believing that The Ancient Mariner
was written for the Lyrical Ballads. It was planned in 1797 and was
originally intended for a magazine. Nevertheless, it may be asserted
that the purpose of The Ancient Mariner and of Christabel (which was
originally intended for the Ballads) was, as their author said, TRUTH,
living truth. He was the last man in the world to care for a story
simply as a chain of events with no significance, and in these poems the
supernatural, by interpenetration with human emotions, comes closer to
us than an event of daily life. In return the emotions themselves, by
means of the supernatural expression, gain intensity. The texture is so
subtly interwoven that it is difficult to illustrate the point by
example, but take the following lines:-


"Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide wide sea!