"O father! I see a gleaming light;
O say, what may it be?"
But the father answered never a word,--
A frozen corpse was he.

Lashed to the helm, all stiff and stark.
With his face turned to the skies.
The lantern gleamed through the gleaming snow
On his fixed and glassy eyes.


[Illustration]


Then the maiden clasped her hands and prayed
That savéd she might be;
And she thought of Christ, who stilled the wave,
On the Lake of Galilee.


[Illustration]


And fast through the midnight dark and drear,
Through the whistling sleet and snow,
Like a sheeted ghost, the vessel swept
Towards the reef of Norman's Woe.

And ever the fitful gusts between,
A sound came from the land;