Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900.djvu/663

 I look'd to heaven, and tried to pray; But or ever a prayer had gusht, A wicked whisper came, and made My heart as dry as dust.

I closed my lids, and kept them close, And the balls like pulses beat; But the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky, Lay like a load on my weary eye, And the dead were at my feet.

The cold sweat melted from their limbs, Nor rot nor reek did they: The look with which they look'd on me Had never pass'd away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell A spirit from on high; But oh! more horrible than that Is the curse in a dead man's eye! Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse, And yet I could not die.

The moving Moon went up the sky, And nowhere did abide; Softly she was going up, And a star or two beside—

Her beams bemock'd the sultry main, Like April hoar-frost spread; But where the ship's huge shadow lay, The charmèd water burnt alway A still and awful red.