and safe in bed,
For men like these, who are ready to die for a wreck off Mumbles Head?
It didn't go well with the lifeboat! 'twas a terrible storm that blew!
And it snapped the' rope in a second that was flung to the drowning crew;

And then the anchor parted--'twas a tussle to keep afloat!
But the father stuck to the rudder, and the boys to the brave old boat.
Then at last on the poor doomed lifeboat a wave broke mountains high!
"God help us now!" said the father. "It's over, my lads! Good-bye"!
Half of the crew swam shoreward, half to the sheltered caves,
But father and sons were fighting death in the foam of the angry waves.

Up at a lighthouse window two women beheld the storm,
And saw in the boiling breakers a figure--a fighting form;
It might be a gray-haired father, then the women held their breath;
It might be a fair-haired brother, who was having a round with death;
It might be a lover, a husband, whose kisses were on the lips
Of the women whose love is the life of men going down to the sea in ships.
They had seen the launch of the lifeboat, they had seen the worst, and
more,
Then, kissing each other, these women went down from the lighthouse,
straight to shore.

There by the rocks on the breakers these sisters, hand in hand,
Beheld once more that desperate man who struggled to reach the land,
'Twas only aid he wanted to help him across the wave,
But what are a couple of women with only a man to save?
What are a couple of women? well, more than three craven men
Who stood by the shore with chattering teeth, refusing to stir--and then
Off went the women's shawls, sir; in a second they're torn and rent,
Then knotting them into a rope of love, straight into the sea they went!

"Come back!" cried the lighthouse-keeper. "For God's sake, girls, come
back!"
As they caught the waves on their foreheads, resisting the fierce attack.
"Come back!" moaned the gray-haired mother, as she stood by the angry sea,
"If the waves take you, my darlings, there's nobody left to me!"

"Come back!" said the three strong soldiers, who still stood faint and
pale,
"You will drown if you face the breakers! you will fall if you brave the
gale!"
"_Come back_!" said the girls, "we will not! go tell it to all the town,
We'll lose our lives, God willing, before that man shall drown!"

"Give one more knot to the shawls, Bess! give one strong clutch of your
hand!
Just follow me, brave, to the shingle, and