But I saw his white and palsied lips,
     And the stare of his ghastly eye,
  When he turned in hurried haste away,
     Yet he had no power to fly;
  He was chained to the deck with his heavy guilt,
     And the blood that was not dry.

  ‘Twas a cursed thing,’ said I, ’to kill
     That old man in his sleep! 
  And the plagues of the sea will come from him;
     Ten thousand fathoms deep!

  And the plagues of the storm will follow us,
     For Heaven his groans hath heard!’
  Still the captain’s eye was fixed on me,
     But he answered never a word.

  And he slowly lifted his bloody hand
     His aching eyes to shade,
  But the blood that was wet did freeze his soul,
     And he shrinked like one afraid.

  And even then—­that very hour
     The wind dropped, and a spell
  Was on the ship, was on the sea,
     And we lay for weeks, how wearily,
  Where the old man’s body fell.

  I told no one within the ship
     That horrid deed of sin;
  For I saw the hand of God at work,
     And punishment begin.

  And when they spoke of the murdered man,
     And the El Dorado hoard,
  They all surmised he had walked in dreams,
     And had fallen overboard.

  But I alone, and the murderer—­
     That dreadful thing did know,
  How he lay in his sin, a murdered man,
     A thousand fathom low.

  And many days, and many more,
     Came on, and lagging sped,
  And the heavy waves of that sleeping sea
     Were dark, like molten lead.

  And not a breeze came, east or west,
     And burning was the sky,
  And stifling was each breath we drew
     Of the air so hot and dry.

  Oh me! there was a smell of death
     Hung round us night and day;
  And I dared not look in the sea below
     Where the old man’s body lay.

  In his cabin, alone, the captain kept,
     And he bolted fast the door,
  And up and down the sailors walked,
     And wished that the calm was o’er.

  The captain’s son was on board with us,
     A fair child, seven years old,
  With a merry look that all men loved,
     And a spirit kind and bold.

  I loved the child, and I took his hand,
     And made him kneel and pray
  That the crime; for which the calm was sent,
     Might be purged clean away.

  For I thought that God would hear his prayer,
     And set the vessel free,—­
  For a dreadful thing it was to lie
     Upon that charnel sea.

  Yet I told him not wherefore he prayed,
     Nor why the calm was sent
  I would not give that knowledge dark
     To a soul so innocent.

  At length I saw a little cloud
     Arise in that sky of flame,
  A little cloud—­but it grew and grew,
     And blackened as it came.