Classic Poem

The coaster knows the western gales
Beat on the Jersey bars,
And anxiously he reefs his sails—
Aloft but naked spars;
When the horizon threatening lies,
And storm-clouds deepen night,
He bids the watch with straining eyes
Look well for Lewes light.

Its red, revolving beams burn low,
Its cheery lenses flame.
“Now spread the sails and speedy go,
Breakwater's help to claim!”
From every point the vessels climb,
The burly and the small,
And parked together bide their time
Behind the friendly wall.

Norwegians, Carolina bound,
And Spaniards weighed with corn,
And whalers from Long Island Sound,
And colliers from Cape Horn;
Behind the Yankee barrier screened
They watch the billows break—
Without the roaring ocean fiend:
Within, a Christian lake.

A hundred years of pious toil
And fifty of debate
Speak in the beacon's burning oil
The sacrificing State
That raised the stones above the sea
To give its navies rest,
And prove the worth of liberty
To nations, for the West.

When morning streaks the sky with peace
The capstans turn with song;
Each vessel hoists its golden fleece,
Nor any linger long.
They drop behind the crystal edge
And down the current roll,
Nor think the friendly roads to pledge
In a religious bowl.

Then on the pilot's ancient town
Comes silence like the grass,
The sand has drunk its forest down,
The beaches glow like brass.
Clap-boarded, the old captains' homes
Beneath the church spire sleep,
And bask between the farming loams
And the insensate deep.