ut right well
To the hamlet under the hill.
And it roused the slumbering fishers,
Nor its warning task gave o'er
Till a hundred fleet
And eager feet
Were hurrying to the shore.

And then it ceased its ringing,
For the woman's work was done,
And many a boat
That was now afloat
Showed man's work had begun.
But the ringer in the belfry
Lay motionless and cold,
With the cord of hope.
The church-bell rope,
Still in her frozen hold.

How long she lay it boots not,
But she woke from her swoon at last
In her own bright room.
To find the gloom,
And the grief, and the peril past,
With the sense of joy within her,
And the Christ's sweet presence near;
And friends around,
And the cooing sound
Of her babe's voice in her ear.

And they told her all the story,
How a brave and gallant few
O'ercame each check,
And reached the wreck,
And saved the hopeless crew.
And how the curious sexton
Had climbed the belfry stair,
And of his fright
When, cold and white,
He found her lying there;

And how, when they had borne her
Back to her home again,
The child she left
With a heart bereft
Of hope, and weary with pain,
Was found within his cradle
In a quiet slumber laid;
With a peaceful smile
On his lips the while,
And the wasting sickness stayed.

And she said "Twas the Christ who watched it,
And brought it safely through";
And she praised His truth
And His tender ruth
Who had saved her darling too.

Nathan Hale

To drum beat and heart beat,
A soldier marches by,
There is color in his cheek,
There is courage in his eye;
Yet to drum beat and heart beat,
In a moment he must die.

By starlight and moonlight,
He seeks the Britons' camp;
He hears the rustling flag,
And the armed sentry's tramp;
And the starlight and moonlight
His silent wanderings lamp.

With a slow tread and still tread,
He scans the tented line,
And he counts the battery guns
By the gaunt and shadowy pine,
And his slow tread and still tread
Gives no warning sign.

The dark wave, the plumed wave,
It meets his eager glance;
And it sparkles 'neath the stars,
Like the glimmer of a lance--
A dark wave, a plumed wave,
On an emerald expanse.

A sharp clang, a steel clang,
And terror in the sound!
For the sentry, falcon-eyed,
In the camp a spy has found;
With a sharp clang, a steel c