Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 28, 1898 - Appendix

THE LIGHT-KEEPER
The brilliant kernel of the night,
The flaming lightroom circles me :
I sit within a blaze of light
Held high above the dusky sea.
Far off the surf doth break and roar
Along bleak miles of moonlit shore,
Where through the tides the tumbling wave
Falls in an avalanche of foam
And drives its churned waters home
Up many an undercliff and cave.
The clear bell chimes : the clockworks strain :
The turning lenses flash and pass,
Frame turning within glittering frame
With frosty gleam of moving glass :
Unseen by me, each dusky hour
The sea-waves welter up the tower
Or in the ebb subside again ;
And ever and anon all night,
Drawn from afar by charm of light,
A sea-bird beats against the pane.
And lastly when dawn ends the night
And belts the semi-orb of sea,
The tall, pale pharos in the light
Looks white and spectral as may be.