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.