“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.