IN seas far north, day after day <br />We leaned upon the rail, engrossed <br />In frolic fin and jewel spray <br />And crystal headlands of the coast. <br />Those beauties held so long in gaze <br />Have melted from my mind like snow, <br />But still I see through rifted haze <br />The wizard tower and portico <br />That flashed one instant, white and whist, <br />A grace too exquisite to keep, <br />A picture springing from the mist <br />As a dream comes shining out of sleep. <br />I do not know what name he wrote, <br />Our captain, in his good ship's log, <br />For that sea-wraith, —how men denote <br />Our fleeting phantom of the fog; <br />But yet across the world I thrill <br />With rapture of that ivory gleam, <br />That sudden shaft of glory, till <br />It wears the wonder of a dream.<br /><br />Katharine Lee Bates<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-lighthouse-14/
