Tybee Beam

Lyrics

[Intro]

[Verse 1]
James Oglethorpe, in seventeen thirty-two,
you ordered this tower risen from the sand,
a wooden beacon against the Atlantic's pull.
By thirty-six, it stood, guiding sails to Savannah's mouth.
Now brick and iron, one hundred fifty-four feet,
black and white stripes like a keeper's watchful eye.

[Chorus]
Oh, Fresnel lens, installed in eighteen sixty-seven,
your six panels cutting through the fog,
eighteen miles out, a beam that whispers safety.
I speak to you now, close as a lover's breath,
in this marsh air thick with salt and mud.

[Verse 2]
Edward G. Fenwick, from seventy-eight to nineteen oh four,
you climbed these one hundred seventy-eight steps,
kerosene in hand, to light the night.
The Head Keeper’s Cottage, white clapboard, tin roof,
porch facing east, where oysters stewed on the stove,
cornbread baking while the surf roared below.

[Bridge]
Nineteen forty-two, anti-submarine watch,
concrete tower scanning for shadows in the haze.
Fort Pulaski across the channel, silent sentinel.
That storm in eighteen oh six, fish hurled to the gallery,
one hundred feet up, wind's strange gift.

[Verse 3]
Tybee Island Light Station, at thirty Meddin Drive,
marsh exhaling earthy breath at low tide,
ocean spray cooling the humid July ninety degrees.
Dawn breaks, your light slicing morning mist,
guiding fishing boats home.

[Chorus]
Oh, Fresnel lens, installed in eighteen sixty-seven,
your six panels cutting through the fog,
eighteen miles out, a beam that whispers safety.
I speak to you now, close as a lover's breath,
in this marsh air thick with salt and mud.

[Outro]
Beam on, old friend, over the trembling earth.