Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/361

CASTLE ISLAND LIGHT And how for months he tarried

With the keeper on the isle,

And for each of the blue-eyed daughters

Had ever a word or a smile.

Between the two that loved him

He lightly made his choice,

And betimes a chance ship took them off

From the father's sight and voice.

The second her trouble could not bear,—

So wild her thoughts had grown

That she fled with a lurking smuggler's crew,

But whither was never known.

Then the keeper aged like Lear,

Left with one faithful child;

But 't was ill to see a maid so young

Who never sang or smiled.

'T is sad to bide with an old, old man,

And between the wave and sky

To watch all day the sea-fowl play,

While lone ships hasten by.

V

came, anon, the white full moon

That rules the middle year,

Before whose sheen the lesser stars

Grow pale and disappear.

It glistened down on a lighthouse tower,

A beach on either hand,

And the features wan of a gray old man

Digging a grave in the sand.

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