"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 though 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 it were 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.'
"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.