Page:Lyrical ballads, Volume 1, Wordsworth, 1800.djvu/230

178 The thick black cloud was cleft, and still

The Moon was at its side:

Like waters shot from some high crag,

The lightning fell with never a jag

A river steep and wide.

The loud wind never reach'd the Ship,

Yet now the Ship mov'd on!

Beneath the lightning and the moon

The dead men gave a groan.

They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,

Nor spake, nor mov'd their eyes:

It had been strange, even in a dream

To have seen those dead men rise.

The helmsman steerd, the ship mov'd on;

Yet never a breeze up-blew;

The Mariners all 'gan work the ropes,

Where they were wont to do:

They rais'd their limbs like lifeless tools—

We were a ghastly crew.