Lady of the Light

She was always the Sentinel
She knew this from the start
Guardian to her one great love
Mystery of a woman’s heart

Long days and bittersweet nights
Wind whips at stone cold walls
Isolation her companion
No comfort in these dark halls

She doesn’t really mind the cold
Or the ninety stairs to the light
To tend to whale oil reserves
Standing guard on foggy nights

Her love is away on a ship at sea
She waits for its arrival
Listens to the fog horn’s moan
Worries for their survival

The wind howls, seas are high
She looks again and again
No sign of the ship by sunrise
She hurries to land’s end

Into town, now gathering
They all ask, “have you heard?”
Hope and faith uniting them
But hours pass without word

The Brother James, lost at sea
Husbands, fathers, and sons
And when it’s over they tally
The number at sixty-one

She feels at fault in some way
The one trusted with the light
Now the years pass by, but still
She dreams of him at night

One day the light did not burn
No one was tending it you see
The lady of the light was gone
To rejoin her man of the sea

© July 1999 Corinne Bailey