Charles Tennyson Turner

The Buoy-Bell

HOW like the leper, with his own sad cry
  Enforcing its own solitude, it tolls!
  That lonely bell set in the rushing shoals,
To warn us from the place of jeopardy!
O friend of man! sore vexed by Ocean’s power,
The changing tides wash o’er thee day by day;
  Thy trembling mouth is filled with bitter spray:
Yet still thou ringest on from hour to hour.
High is thy mission, though thy lot is wild:
  To be in danger’s realm a guardian sound;
    In seamen’s dreams a pleasant part to bear,
  And earn their blessing as the year goes round;
    And strike the keynote of each grateful prayer
Breathed in their distant homes by wife or child.