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

Copyright  2004  United States Coast Guard Lightship Sailors by MGM IMAGING . All rights reserved.

Copyrights also protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 Revised: 11/03/07.