Seite:Marsh Wolfe of the knoll.djvu/77

81

THE RANSOM.

And that at midnight when they watch by some dear pass-
    ing soul,
The listening ear may faintly catch a low and muffled toll.
'Tis said, too, when the sea is calm, that ofttimes may be
    seen
Not only the lost house of God, but buried homes of men ;
That still upright beneath the flood as fair to view they stand
As when they rose upon the isle, fresh from the builder's
    hand.*
But to my tale. In that first church, upon Wolfe's infant
    head
With simple rite, the man of God Christ's covenant waters
    shed.
There with his parents, when a boy, from week to week he
    went
To pray for pardon of his sins through him whom God hath
    sent.

  * It is reported of many of the sunken hamlets, that at times their
church-bells are heard to ring beneath the water, and that in still weather,
theh- houses can be discerned in the deep. The bells of a sunken village
in North Friesland are said to chime on Easter morning.