Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/The Beacon

The Beacon.

The scene was more beautiful far, to my eye, Than if day in its pride had arrayed it;The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure-arched sky Looked pure as the Spirit that made it.

The murmur arose, as I silently gazed On the shadowy waves' playful motion;From the dim distant isle till the beacon-fire blazed Like a star in the midst of the ocean.

No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast Was heard in his wildly-breathed numbers;The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girded nest, The fisherman sunk to his slumbers.

I sighed as I looked from the hills' gentle slope; All hushed was the billows' commotion;And I thought that the beacon looked lovely as Hope, That star of life's tremulous ocean.

The time is long past, and the scene is afar, Yet, when my head rests on its pillow,Will memory sometimes rekindle the star That blazed on the breast of the billow.

In life's closing hour, when the trembling soul flies, And death stills the soul's last emotion,O then may the seraph of mercy arise, Like a star on eternity's ocean.