Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/686

 He despise th the creatures of the calm

��And envieth that they should live, and so many he dead.

��SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

The many men, so beautiful! And they all dead did lie: And a thousand thousand slimy things Lived on; and so did I.

I look'd upon the rotting sea, And drew my eyes away; I look'd upon the rotting deck, And there the dead men lay.

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.

��But the curse The cold sweat melted from their limbs,

liveth for him XT i j j i.

m the eye of the Nor rot nor reek did they:

dead men

��Had never pass'd away.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell

A spirit from on high;

But oh 1 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.

�� �