Ralph Waldo Emerson, comp. (1803–1882). Parnassus: An Anthology of Poetry. 1880.
WinstanleyJean Ingelow (18201897)
W
With it I fill my lay,
And a nobler man ne’er walked the world,
Let his name be what it may.
Up at the vane looked he;
“Belike,” he said, for the wind had dropped,
“She lieth becalmed at sea.”
And still would each one say,
“Good mercer, be the ships come up?”
But still he answered, “Nay.”
With looks of grief and fear:
“Now, if Winstanley be your name,
We bring you evil cheer!
On the rock,—the Eddystone,
And down she went with threescore men,
We two being left alone.
Past any help she lies,
And never a bale has come to shore
Of all thy merchandise.”
Winstanley said, and sighed,
“For velvet coif, or costly coat,
They fathoms deep may bide.
O mariners, bold and true,
Sorry at heart, right sorry am I,
A-thinking of yours and you.
Shall feel a weight within,
For a waft of wind he shall be ’feared,
And trading count but sin.
To pace the cheerful town,
And see the lovely ladies gay
Step on in velvet gown.”
All under the yeasty spray;
On Christmas Eve the brig “Content”
Was also cast away.
So jolly as he sat then,
While drank the toast and praised the roast
The round-faced Aldermen,—
Pouring the ruby wine,
And jellies trembled on the board,
And towering pasties fine,—
Till the lamps did rock o’erhead,
And holly-boughs from rafters hung
Dropped down their berries red,—
With every rising tide,
How the wave washed in his sailor lads,
And laid them side by side.
“Now, stranger, who be ye?”
He looked to right, he looked to left,
And “Rest you merry,” quoth he;
Or ever a storm had blown;
For you did not see the white wave rear
At the rock,—the Eddystone.
Crash went the masts in twain;
She staggered back with her mortal blow,
Then leaped at it again.
The misty moon looked out!
And the water swarmed with seamen’s heads,
And the wreck was strewed about.
As I clung to the rock alone;
Then she heeled over, and down she went,
And sank like any stone.
For naught could bide the shock.”
“I will take horse,” Winstanley said,
“And see this deadly rock.
Sail over the windy sea,
Unless, by the blessing of God, for this
Be found a remedy.”
All in the sleet and the snow;
And he looked around on shore and sound,
As he stood on Plymouth Hoe.
And shot up its stately head,
Reared, and fell over, and reared again:
“Tis the rock! the rock!” he said.
“Good Master Mayor,” quoth he,
“I am a mercer of London town,
And owner of vessels three,—
I had five to track the main.”
“You are one of many,” the old Mayor said,
“That on the rock complain.
Well with my thoughts they chime,
For my two sons to the world to come
It sent before their time.”
And a score of shipwrights free,
For I think to raise a lantern tower
On this rock o’ destiny.”
“Ah, youth,” quoth he, “is rash;
Sooner, young man, thou’lt root it out
From the sea that doth it lash.
He shall have evil lot;
For the calmest seas that tumble there
Froth like a boiling pot.
But straight they lay him dead;
A seventy-gun-ship, sir!—they’ll shoot
Higher than her masthead.
They are right welcome things,
And pitchpots flaming on the shore
Show fair as angel wings.
It ’longs to thee and me;
But let alone the deadly rock
In God Almighty’s sea.”
On the rock to set my feet;
My debts are paid, my will I made,
Or ever I did thee greet.
By the rock, and not elswhere;
If I may live, O let me live
To mount my lighthouse stair.”
And answered, “Have thy way;
Thy heart is stout, as if round about
It was braced with an iron stay:
Put off from the storm-rid shore;
God with thee be, or I shall see
Thy face and theirs no more.”
And foam flew up the lea,
Morning and even the drifted snow
Fell into the dark gray sea.
He said, “My time I waste,”
For the seas ran seething up the shore,
And the wrack drave on in haste.
Pacing the strand alone,
Or ever he sat his manly foot
On the rock,—the Eddystone.
And worked with power and might:
Whatever the man reared up by day
The sea broke down by night.
He sailed to shore at flow;
And at his side, by that same tide,
Came bar and beam alsó.
“Or thou wilt rue the day.”
“Yonder he goes,” the townsfolk sighed,
But the rock will have its way.
And his speeches brave and fair,
He may wait on the wind, wait on the wave,
But he’ll build no lighthouse there.”
The rock his arts did flout,
Through the long days and the short days,
Till all that year ran out.
Another year came in;
“To take his wage,” the workmen said,
“We almost count a sin.”
And a sea-fog settled down,
And forth sailed he on a glassy sea,
He sailed from Plymouth town.
As he was wont to do:
They showed in the fog like ghosts full faint,—
A ghostly craft and crew.
For a long eight days and more;
“God help our men,” quoth the women then;
“For they bide long from shore.”
“Where may our mariners be?”
But the brooding fog lay soft as down
Over the quiet sea.
The thirteenth day at e’en;
“As I am a man,” the captain cried,
“A strange sight I have seen:
At sea, in the fog and the rain,
Like shipwrights’ hammers tapping low,
Then loud, then low again.
Through a rift, on the vessel’s lee;
What manner of creatures may be those
That built upon the sea?”
And they flocked to the shore amain:
All over the Hoe that livelong night,
Many stood out in the rain.
And the rolling fog did flee;
And, lo! in the offing faint and far
Winstanley’s house at sea!
The stately tower uprose;
In foul weather, with hunger and cold,
They were content to close;
To fire the wick afar;
And Plymouth in the silent night
Looked out, and saw her star.
Said he, “My work is done;
I hold it strong to last as long
As aught beneath the sun.
Borne down with ruin and rout,
Another than I shall rear it high,
And brace the girders stout.
For now the way is plain;
And though I were dead,” Winstanley said,
“The light would shine again.
Watch in my tower to keep,
And tend my light in the stormiest night
That ever did move the deep;
Amid their tremulous stirs,
To count each stroke when the mad waves broke,
For cheers of mariners.
That I should with it fall;
Since, for my part, I have built my heart
In the courses of its wall.
Watch in my tower to keep,
And tend my light in the stormiest night
That ever did move the deep.”
And left the rock renowned,
And summer and winter his pilot star
Hung bright o’er Plymouth Sound.
That he would put to sea,
To scan once more his lighthouse tower
On the rock o’ destiny.
And wrecks came plunging in;
None in the town that night lay down
Or sleep or rest to win.
And each flung up its dead;
The seething flow was white below,
And black the sky o’erhead.
Broke on the trembling town,
And men looked south to the harbor mouth,
The lighthouse tower was down.
Who made it shine afar,
And then in the night that drowned its light,
Set, with his pilot star.
At Westminster they show;
The brave and the great lie there in state:
Winstanley lieth low.