Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
America: Vols. XXV–XXIX. 1876–79.
The Light-houses
By Lucy Larcom (1826–1893)T
On an island bleak and bare,
Listening to the breakers’ moan,
Shivering in the chilly air;
Looking inland towards a hill,
On whose top one aged tree
Wrestles with the storm-wind’s will,
Rushing, wrathful, from the sea.
Side by side, so white and tall,
Sending one long, hopeless gleam
Down the horizon’s darkened wall.
Spectres, strayed from plank or spar,
With a tale none lives to tell,
Grazing at the town afar,
Where unconscious widows dwell.
Guiding wave-worn wanderers home;
Sentinels of hope they be,
Drenched with sleet, and dashed with foam,
Standing there in loneliness,
Fireside joys for men to keep;
Through the midnight slumberless
That the quiet shore may sleep.
To the fierce moods of the sea;
Eyes that only close when light
Dawns on lonely hill and tree.
O kind watchers! teach us, too,
Steadfast courage, sufferance long!
Where an eye is turned to you,
Should a human heart grow strong.