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A Lightship Poem...
Off sunken reef, where surges roar
And seagulls wing their flight
A Lightship rides off a rocky shore
As daylight fades to night.
She sees the war-gray hulls glide by
That sail to meet the foe,
And hears the distant guns reply
Returning blow for blow.
The flash that lights the sea?s wide rim
The distant muffled boom
That marks a sea-fight fierce and grim
And star-pierced midnight gloom
The battered hulls come slowly home
With their dying and their dead
Caressed by wave and kissed by foam-
Their decks all stained with red
The bell-buoy signals as they pass
The harbor?s mouth is near;
While rich or poor, many a lass
Waits between hope and fear.
Still on the ledge, the Lightship swings
And marks the sunken reef
Still seagulls soar on tireless wings
Heedless of human grief.
Voices of the Past, 1920
Thought to have been Written on Brenton Reef
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© 2009 USCG Lightship Sailors Association International Inc. Larry Ryan, President
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