Volume Ii Part 26 (2/2)
In fair weather with mirth and cheer The stately tower uprose; In foul weather with hunger and cold They were content to close;
Till up the stair Winstanley went, To fire the wick afar; And Plymouth in the silent night Looked out and saw her star.
Winstanley set his foot ash.o.r.e; Said he, ”My work is done; I hold it strong to last as long As aught beneath the sun.
”But if it fail, as fail it may, Borne down with ruin and rout, Another than I shall rear it high, And brace the girders stout.
”A better than I shall rear it high, For now the way is plain; And though I were dead,” Winstanley said, ”The light would s.h.i.+ne again.
”Yet were I fain still to remain, Watch in my tower to keep, And tend my light in the stormiest night That ever did move the deep;
”And if it stood, why then 'twere good, Amid their tremulous stirs, To count each stroke when the mad waves broke, For cheers of mariners.
”But if it fell, then this were well, That I should with it fall; Since, for my part, I have built my heart In the courses of its wall.
”Ay! I were fain, long to remain, Watch in my tower to keep, And tend my light in the stormiest night That ever did move the deep.”
With that Winstanley went his way, And left the rock renowned, And summer and winter his pilot star Hung bright o'er Plymouth Sound.
But it fell out, fell out at last, That he would put to sea, To scan once more his lighthouse tower On the rock o' destiny.
And the winds broke, and the storm broke, And wrecks came plunging in; None in the town that night lay down Or sleep or rest to win.
The great mad waves were rolling graves, And each flung up its dead; The seething flow was white below, And black the sky o'erhead.
And when the dawn, the dull, gray dawn, Broke on the trembling town, And men looked south to the harbor mouth, The lighthouse tower was down.
Down in the deep, where he doth sleep Who made it s.h.i.+ne afar, And then in the night that drowned its light, Set, with his pilot star.
Many fair tombs in the glorious glooms At Westminster they show; The brave and the great lie there in state; Winstanley lieth low.
JEAN INGELOW.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
THE STORM.
The tempest rages wild and high, The waves lift up their voice and cry Fierce answers to the angry sky,-- _Miserere Domine._
Through the black night and driving rain, A s.h.i.+p is struggling, all in vain, To live upon the stormy main;-- _Miserere Domine._
The thunders roar, the lightnings glare, Vain is it now to strive or dare; A cry goes up of great despair,-- _Miserere Domine._
The stormy voices of the main, The moaning wind and pelting rain Beat on the nursery window pane:-- _Miserere Domine._
Warm curtained was the little bed, Soft pillowed was the little head; ”The storm will wake the child,” they said:-- _Miserere Domine._
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