Ibant Obscuræ

To-night I saw three maidens on the beach,
        Dark-robed descending to the sea,
    So slow, so silent of all speech,
        And visible to me
    Only by that strange drift-light, dim, forlorn,
    Of the sun's wreck and clashing surges born.

      Each after other went,
        And they were gathered to his breast--
    It seemed to me a sacrament
       Of some stern creed unblest:
   As when to rocks, that cheerless girt the bay,
   They bound thy holy limbs, Andromeda.