# Fragment of a poem

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fragment-of-a-poem/726563>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [July 30, 2015, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fragment-of-a-poem/726563 "2015-07-30T06:20:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![movingfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@movingfinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/movingfinger)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fragment-of-a-poem/726563/1 "2015-07-30T06:20:18Z")

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I am currently reading **Passage** by Connie Willis, and enjoying it immensely. one of the characters quotes a pair of lines from a poem:

“Four times fifty living men, they dropped down one by one.”

Any ideas what this bit came from?

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**Author:** ![journeyman\_southpaw](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5e9695/32.png) [@journeyman\_southpaw](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/journeyman_southpaw)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fragment-of-a-poem/726563/2 "2015-07-30T06:44:14Z")

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Those lines appear in [The Rime of the Ancient Mariner](http://knarf.english.upenn.edu/Coleridg/mariner.html) though not in succession.

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**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fragment-of-a-poem/726563/3 "2015-07-30T12:38:57Z")

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The first Google entry will give you your answer. You may hear about that Google thing in the future.

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**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\
**Post date:** [July 30, 2015, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fragment-of-a-poem/726563/4 "2015-07-30T13:13:02Z")

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The line’s also quoted by Iron Maiden in their song named after the poem.