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 ashore;
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 tho' I were dead," Winstanley said,
"The light would shine 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 woke, 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 shine 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._

[Illustration]

END OF VOL. I.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes,
Volume I., by Jean Ingelow

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POEMS BY JEAN INGELOW, I. ***

***** This file should be named 13223.txt or