The Dream of Abbie Burgess

by Mark Anthony Signorelli (August 2010)

Is that the noise of the agonized sea,
Is that the bawl of the northeast gale
And is that the boom of the iron coast
That even in this, my final bed,
Just such a storm comes back to me
As ambushed Matinicus Rock
To Rockland father had sailed away,
Alone in the tower endured the wrath
The waves in their fury breached the walls
Till not one stone on another stood
But with the ships in the unfed deep
For not a man aboard but lived
Cloud-ward on the waves they surged,
Down into the trough they plunged
So desperately, in dusk and dark,
Lest even the poorest cabin boy
Lest even the smallest schooner boat
I labored at my heavy task
Once when the ocean skirt the coop
And bore the frantic chickens back
Oh how I longed to gather in
And bear him in my arms away
To bear him in my arms away
And place him on the solid coast
Last night I dreamed of the weathered tower
Lonely amid the mounting tide
The clouds that augur storm and rain
The lightning whipped the champing waves,
And homeward from the teeming banks
And one by one each fell into
Just at that moment every man
Like the sleeping face of one beloved-
Or like the weeping of a child
Whom we to soothe at once enfold
And all the world was like a gate
And none but I was there to hold
I hurried where the lighthouse stood,
But underneath my powerless feet

I seemed to float across the waves
And as I went I watched all things
The night was stealing through the sky,
And I must light the mouldering lamp
Oh, who will keep the lighthouse flame
And who will guard the noble souls
And who will be the light from home
And all the ocean mounts with rage,

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