C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
The Watch of Boon Island
By Celia Laighton Thaxter (18351894)
T
Its moaning seemed but singing. “Wilt thou dare,”
He asked her, “brave the loneliness with me?”
“What loneliness,” she said, “if thou art there?”
Loomed the tall light-house, like a ghostly sign;
They sighed not as the shore behind grew dim,—
A rose of joy they bore across the brine.
Among the wild waves and the sea-birds wild;
The wintry winds blew fierce across the foam,
But in each other’s eyes they looked and smiled.
Fed by their faithful hands; and ships in sight
With joy beheld it, and on land men cried,
“Look, clear and steady burns Boon Island light!”
“Shine far and through the dark, sweet light,” they cried;
“Bring safely back the sailors from all lands
To waiting love,—wife, mother, sister, bride!”
Tore the vexed ocean into furious spray;
No chill could find them in their Eden warm,
And gently Time lapsed onward day by day.
Whose awful footfalls everywhere are known,
With echoing sobs, who chills the summer sun,
And turns the happy heart of youth to stone;
At every hearth, before whose footsteps flee
All joys; who rules the earth, and without rest
Roams the vast shuddering spaces of the sea.
But laid a finger on her lover’s lips,
And there was silence. Then the storm ran high,
And tossed and troubled sore the distant ships.
The speechless sorrow, the supreme despair?
Still like a ghost she trimmed the waning light,
Dragging her slow weight up the winding stair.
While lashed to madness the wild sea she heard;
She kept her awful vigil with the dead,
And God’s sweet pity still she ministered.
Piercing so far the tumult of the dark,
A radiant star of hope,—you could not dream
What misery there sat cherishing that spark!
Descended, shrouded in the storm. At last
The sun rose clear and still on her despair,
And all her striving to the winds she cast,
For the wide sea lay calm as her dead love,
When evening fell, from the far land, in doubt,
Vainly to find that faithful star men strove.
For pity ready, search in vain the night,
And wondering neighbor unto neighbor cries,
“Now what, think you, can ail Boon Island light?”
They found her watching, silent, by her dead,
A shadowy woman, who nor wept nor wailed,
But answered what they spake, till all was said.
With anguish time seemed powerless to destroy
She turned, and backward gazed across the bay,—
Lost in the sad sea lay her rose of joy.