The sails do sigh, like sedge:
The rain pours down from one black cloud
And the Moon is at its edge.

Hark! hark! the thick black cloud is cleft,
And the Moon is at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
The lightning falls with never a jag
A river steep and wide.

The strong wind reach'd the ship: it roar'd
And dropp'd down, like a stone!
Beneath the lightning and the moon
The dead men gave a groan.

They groan'd, they stirr'd, they all uprose,
Ne spake, ne 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 Marineres all 'gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do:

They rais'd their limbs like lifeless tools--
We were a ghastly crew.

The body of my brother's son
Stood by me knee to knee: