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West Point Lighthouse
by Elizabeth Doyle Solomon

Will you climb up seventy-two stairs
As we are sleeping tonight?
Will you come back, Willie MacDonald,
To your job at the West Point Light?

Do you miss the sound of the sea,
The wave breaking on the shore?
Do you think of the years you worked,
When the wind creaked the Lighthouse door?

Who will tell the tales for you,
Who will polish the lenses with care?
Who will say thank you, MacDonald,
For telling the sailors, "Beware"?

I climbed up all of your stairs tonight;
I looked out of the windows to see-
I stood where the light warns sailors,
But now done electrically-

I slept with the surf in my ears
While the light went round and round-
I slept in your Lighthouse, MacDonald,
Now I am part of its sound-

Part of the old worn-wooden steps,
Part of the salt in the air-
And I will stand tall for the years
When you took such diligent care.

The waves have long since washed the sand
Where your feet walked to and fro-
God bless the lights and the keepers
That kept the ships safe long ago.

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Our Lighthouse
2000
West Point, Prince Edward Island

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Elizabeth Doyle Solomon wrote this poem of our Lighthouse on August 13, 1990. She is a published writer who lives with her husband in a 17-room restored farm-house "Llanartha' in Howardsville, Virginia. She has been published in the local Charlottesville area, nationally, and internationally. Solomon had written over 37,000 poems at the time of this writing, her first was at age 11 in her native New Orleans.