Light Cyclops: the Tall Ships Races

FAROL:

"Estrutura elevada e bem visível no topo da qual se coloca uma luz que serve de ajuda à navegação. Um farol consta essencialmente do edifício, da origem luminosa e do aparelho óptico. São colocados nas costas, ilhas, baixios, etc., e, algumas vezes, montados em barcos especiais surtos, de modo a constituírem uma marca bem visível no mar. Caracterizam um farol a cor, carácter, o período e fases, intensidade luminosa e o seu alcance. De dia, a forma e cor do edifício do farol servem de reconhecimento, e de noite, as características da luz. Serve de orientação aos navegantes, de noite pela luz, e de dia, pelo corpo do edifício."

Comandante António Marques Esparteiro - Dicionário Ilustrado da Marinha

"O farol de Pharos, guardião da ilha que lhe deu nome, à entrada do porto de Alexandria (Egipto), não terá sido, certamente, o primeiro a ser erigido pelos povos da antiguidade, embora não sejam conhecidas seguras referências a outros faróis mais antigos. Reconhecido como uma das 7 maravilhas da Antiguidade, por Antípatro de Sídon, a importância do farol de Pharos foi tal que este tipo de estruturas acabam por adoptar o seu nome: Pharos - farol."

Ricardo Soares (2008), Tartessos, um povo do mar. Génese da navegação, técnicas de construção e embarcações mediterrâneas pré-romanas.

"Passando o Promontório Bárbaro (cabo Espichel) para o litoral do Tejo, vemos, ao poente, avançando para o oceano, o Promontório da Lua (cabo da Roca) onde começava o domínio dos antigos Túrdulos (...). Mais para dentro, a pequena distância, no extremo da abertura do estuário de Lisboa, assenta sobre cachopos uma ermida, dedicada a Nossa Senhora, chamada da Guia. À noite, acendem ali uns fachos para indicar o trajecto aos mareantes, não seja caso que estes, por não lobrigarem a passagem, arremessem, contra vontade, as naus para os baixios e rochedos."

Damião de Góis (1554), Lisboa Quinhentista

Faróis distantes,

De luz subitamente tão acesa,

De noite e ausência tão rapidamente volvida,

Na noite, no convés, que consequências aflitas!

Mágoa última dos despedidos,

Ficção de pensar...

Faróis distantes...

Incerteza da vida...

Voltou crescendo a luz acesa avançadamente,

No acaso do olhar perdido...

Faróis distantes...

A vida de nada serve...

Pensar na vida de nada serve...

Pensar de pensar na vida de nada serve...

Vamos para longe e a luz que vem grande vem menos grande.

Faróis distantes...

Álvaro de Campos

"O capitão, que algumas horas antes do anoitecer procurava ansiosamente avistar terra, recolheu ao seu casinhoto no convés, onde se não conservou por longo tempo, porque o piloto logo começou a exclamar que via uma luz, o que obrigou o capitão, os tripulantes e os passageiros, que desde a calmaria não apareciam, a aglomerar-se na coberta, formando-se então por todo o navio uma corrente de vida. Cada qual felicitava cordialmente os companheiros, na perspectiva de em breve dali sair. Passando o entusiasmo dos primeiros momentos, caíram os viajantes num estado de semiquietação. A luz era a do farol da foz do Tejo, constituindo o seu aparecimento como que uma prova da proficiência náutica do mestre do navio."

Joseph e Henry Bullar, Um Inverno nos Açores e Um Verão no Vale das Furnas

Olhos de Farol

Por que só vens de madrugada

E nunca estás por onde eu vou?

Somente em sonhos vi a luz

Da lua cheia

O canto da sereia

No breu da noite eu sei que

Reinas a me reflectir

Olhos de farol

Porque tu és a lua e eu sou o sol

Porque só brilhas quando eu durmo

Sou condenado a te perder

Eu só queria ver andar na ventania

Luar do meio-dia

Na minha fantasia, ainda sou teu Pierrot

E disfarço mal

A lágrima de amor no carnaval

Eu te vi em sonhos

A boiar no meu jardim

Lua de cetim entre os lençóis

E no céu sem nuvens

Podem as miragens

Se tornar reais e são dois sóis

Eu te vi rainha

Dona de nós

Imitar a voz dos rouxinóis

E no céu em chamas

Podem as miragens

Se tornar reais e são dois sóis

Ney Matogrosso

The Lighthouse

The rocky ledge runs far into the sea,

and on its outer point, some miles away,

the lighthouse lifts its massive masonry,

A pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.

Even at this distance I can see the tides,

Upheaving, break unheard along its base,

A speechless wrath, that rises and subsides

in the white tip and tremor of the face.

And as the evening darkens, lo! how bright,

through the deep purple of the twilight air,

Beams forth the sudden radiance of its light,

with strange, unearthly splendor in the glare!

No one alone: from each projecting cape

And perilous reef along the ocean’s verge,

Starts into life a dim, gigantic shape,

Holding its lantern o’er the restless surge.

Like the great giant Christopher it stands

Upon the brink of the tempestuous wave,

Wading far out among the rocks and sands,

The night o’er taken mariner to save.

And the great ships sail outward and return

Bending and bowing o’er the billowy swells,

And ever joyful, as they see it burn

They wave their silent welcome and farewells.

They come forth from the darkness, and their sails

Gleam for a moment only in the blaze,

And eager faces, as the light unveils

Gaze at the tower, and vanish while they gaze.

The mariner remembers when a child,

on his first voyage, he saw it fade and sink

And when returning from adventures wild,

He saw it rise again o’er ocean’s brink.

Steadfast, serene, immovable, the same,

Year after year, through all the silent night

Burns on forevermore that quenchless flame,

Shines on that inextinguishable light!

It sees the ocean to its bosom clasp

The rocks and sea-sand with the kiss of peace:

It sees the wild winds lift it in their grasp,

And hold it up, and shake it like a fleece.

The startled waves leap over it; the storm

Smites it with all the scourges of the rain,

And steadily against its solid form

press the great shoulders of the hurricane.

The sea-bird wheeling round it, with the din

of wings and winds and solitary cries,

Blinded and maddened by the light within,

Dashes himself against the glare, and dies.

A new Prometheus, chained upon the rock,

Still grasping in his hand the fire of love,

it does not hear the cry, nor heed the shock,

but hails the mariner with words of love.

“Sail on!” it says: “sail on, ye stately ships!”

And with your floating bridge the ocean span;

Be mine to guard this light from all eclipse.

Be yours to bring man nearer unto man.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1848)

Minot's Ledge Lighthouse Poem

Like spectral hounds across the sky

The white clouds scud before the storm,

And naked in the howling night

The red-eyed light-house lifts its form.

The waves with slippery fingers clutch

The massive tower, and climb and fall,

And, muttering, growl with baffled rage

Their curses on the sturdy wall.

Up in the lonely tower he sits,

The keeper of the crimson light-

Silent and awe-struck does he hear

The imprecations of the night.

The white spray beats against the panes

Like some wet ghost that down the air

Is hunted by a troop of fiends,

And seeks a shelter any where.

He prays aloud - the lonely man-

For every soul that night at sea,

But more than all for that brave boy

Who used to gayly climb his knee.

Young Charley, with the chestnut hair

And hazel eyes and laughing lip,

“May Heaven look down,” the old man cries,

“Upon my son, and on his ship!”

While thus with pious heart he prays

Far in the distance sounds a boom-

He pauses, and again there rings

That sullen thunder through the room.

A ship upon the shoal to-night!

She can not hold for one half hour-

But clear the ropes and grappling-hooks,

And trust in the Almighty power!

On the drenched gallery he stands,

Striving to pierce the solid night,

Across the sea the red eye throws

A steady crimson wake of light,

And where it falls upon the waves

He sees a human head float by,

With long, drenched curls of chestnut hair,

And wild but fearless hazel eye.

Out with the hooks! One mighty fling!

Adown the wind the long rope curls.

Oh! will it catch? Ah! dread suspense

While the wild ocean wilder whirls.

A steady pull. - It tautens now!

Oh, his old heart will burst with joy

As on the slippery rocks he pulls

The breathing body of his boy.

Still sweep the spectres through the sky,

Still scud the clouds before the storm,

Still naked in the howling night

The red-eyed light-house lifts its form.

Without, the world is wild with rage,

Unkenneled demons are abroad,

But with the father and the son

Within, there is the peace of God.

Fitz James O'Brien (1861)

The Light-Keeper II

As the steady lenses circle

With frosty gleam of glass;

And the clear bell chimes,

And the oil brims over the lip of the burner,

Quiet and still at his desk,

The Lonely Light-Keeper

Holds his vigil.

Lured from far,

The bewildered seagull beats

Dully against the lantern;

Yet he stirs not, lefts not his head

From the desk where he reads,

Lifts not his eyes to see

The chill blind circle of night

Watching him through the panes.

This is his country’s guardian,

The outmost sentry of peace,

This is the man

Who gives up what is lovely in living

For the means to live.

Poetry cunningly guilds

The life of the Light-Keeper,

Held on high in the blackness

In the burning kernal of night,

The seaman sees and blesses him,

The Poet, deep in a sonnet,

Numbers his inky fingers

Fitly to praise him.

Only we behold him,

Sitting, patient and stolid,

Martyr to a salary.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Lighthouse

It's the place that's said to break

It's just as safe from the outside tonight

And I want that

I face the storms at the tides

From the lighthouse

And I want that

Unleash the storm and the night

Oh...

What do the waves have to say now?

Slow now

And let the waves have their way now

Slow, and let the waves have their day

And I want that

Here I've been living on roofs made from sin

Upward and outward, "Begin, begin."

Here I've been lucid I'm living within

Inwardly urgent, I'm sinking again

The Lighthouse

Interpol

The Lighthouse's Tale

I am a lighthouse, worn by the weather and the waves.

I keep my lamp lit, to warn the sailors on their way.

I'll tell a story, paint you a picture from my past.

I was so happy, but joy in this life seldom lasts.

I had a keeper, he helped me warn the ships at sea.

We had grown closer, 'till his joy meant everything to me.

And he was to marry, a girl who shone with beauty and light.

And they loved each other, and with me watched the sunsets into night.

And the waves crashing around me, the sand slips out to sea.

And the winds that blow remind me, of what has been, and what can never be.

She'd had to leave us, my keeper he prayed for a safe return.

But when the night came, the weather to a raging storm had turned.

He watched her ship fight, but in vain against the wild and terrible wave.

In me so helpless, as dashed against the rock she met her end.

Then on the next day, my keeper found her washed up on the SHORE.

He kissed her cold face, that they'd be together soon he'd swore.

I saw him crying, watched as he buried her in the sand.

And then he climbed my tower, and off of the edge of me he ran.

I am a lighthouse, worn by the weather and the waves.

And though I am empty, I still warn the sailors on their way.

Nickel Creek

Lighthouse

I wanna sing, While the ocean sleeps

I wanna feel, what its like to be free

I wanna see, what you see in me

I wanna know, how it feels to believe

Cus I feel lost, somehow Im drifting away

Was almost gone, You brought me to life again

So let me be your lighthouse

And Ill help you find a way out of here

I see the tide is comin

Don't let it take you away from me

Theres no way I'm jumpin over

I know its your love that saved me

Cus I was lost, somehow drifting away

Was almost gone, You brought me to life again

So let me be your lighthouse

And Ill help you find a way out of here

I can see the tide

From a faraway out

But its slowly drifting away from me

Cus I was lost, somehow drifting away

Was almost gone, You brought me to life again

So let me be your lighthouse

And Ill help you find a way out of here

let me be your lighthouse

And Ill help you find a way out of here

Hope

the Tall Ships Races - Lisbon 2012