Keeper Of The Light

Aloft within the beacon tower alone She trims the lamps that send their luminous beams Far out into the night. The eerie moan Of the wild shoal is smothered by the screams Of winds that make the thrumming walls resound With deafening din. She listens, mute with dread, To voices mingling vaguely in the sound Of the storm maddened waves, and shakes her head. “Is it the waves?” she mutters. Bent and old Her fingers tremble so,—but not from cold! Her husband tosses on his cot below Burning with fever, often calls her name. But she must stand his watch though none may know Of her long vigil. Vestal of a flame Whose warning beams guide mariners aright Mid perilous reefs, through all engulfing gloom Though unclean spirits rage throughout the night Riding the furious winds in rain and spume, No matter if she shivers and turns pale, Her courage, like her light, endures the gale. But what drives hard like spray against the glass Hurtling from out the dark? a tiny form With battered wings, a tern which flees, alas, Like some lost soul from the pursuing storm Dashed to the rocks below. “Dear God!” she cries “Why must my light that points great ships the way “Be blooded by his piteous sacrifice? “Life saving beams, who gave them power to slay? “How hopelessly must good and evil blend “When harmless birds meet such a cruel end.”