This piece focuses on the overwhelming--often drowning feeling--of hopelessness we face during the course of our lives, especially during the darkest times. In the poem, the lighthouse represents the glimmer of hope, of light, that we can find during those rough times, during the inevitable "storms" we find ourselves finding against. In this case, the sailor sees the Light from the lighthouse as he is fighting against monstrous waves, and looks to it for saving. Yet what he fails to realize is that this the lighthouse is only a lighthouse--it's not able to save him from the storm, only he can do that himself through swimming towards it; its role is only to guide the sailor towards the right direction and to show him that light is possible during the darkest of times.