climbingly

With ghastly faces ghastlier from the lamp, / That swung and flicker’d with its yellow flare, / And feebly stain’d their frighten’d features, damp / With chilly sweat and rigid with despair, / Or list’ning to the terrifying tramp / Of feet above the cabin where they were, / Or gazing, as they shrunk and huddled more / And more together on the shelving floor, / Upon the fierce irruption of the seas, / Which now had grown a formidable tide, / That climbingly increas’d by swift degrees, / The passengers were kneeling side by side, / Gentle and simple; but alarm did freeze / Their accents, and the pray’r unutter’d died / Within their lips, ’till fell the mast, and then / « Oh! God! » they cried, and straight were still again.