The long narrative poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, was published in 1798 during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Even by this time, however, the devastating consequence of burning coal to fuel the proliferation of factories was evident. Once pristine valleys were transformed into darkened wastelands of smoke and soot, bucolic streams and rivers were turned toxic black, quaint villages were converted to slums of indentured labourers, and the maw of multiple machines was making people into consumable and disposable objects. The artistic reaction to this perceived travesty was Romanticism, an effort to save humanity and nature from a revolution that was perceived to be destroying both.