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.