Then he and the sea began their strife,
And worked with power and might:
Whatever the man reared up by day
The sea broke down by night.

He wrought at ebb with bar and beam,
He sailed to shore at flow;
And at his side, by that same tide,
Came bar and beam alsó.

"Give in, give in," the old Mayor cried,

"Or thou wilt rue the day." "Yonder he goes," the townsfolk sighed,

But the rock will have its way.

"For all his looks that are so stout, And his speeches brave and fair, He may wait on the wind, wait on the wave,

But he'll build no lighthouse there."

In fine weather and foul weather
The rock his arts did flout,
Through the long days and the short
days,

Till all that year ran out.

With fine weather and foul weather Another year came in;

"To take his wage," the workmen said,

"We almost count a sin."

Now March was gone, came April in,
And a sea-fog settled down,
And forth sailed he on a glassy sea,
He sailed from Plymouth town.

With men and stores he put to sea,
As he was wont to do:
They showed in the fog like ghosts
full faint,

A ghostly craft and crew.

And the sea-fog lay and waxed alway, For a long eight days and more; "God help our men," quoth the women then;

"For they bide long from shore."

They paced the Hoe in doubt and dread:

"Where may our mariners be?" But the brooding fog lay soft as down Over the quiet sea.

A Scottish schooner made the port, The thirteenth day at e'en; "As I am a man," the captain cried, "A strange sight I have seen:

"And a strange sound heard, my masters all,

At sea, in the fog and the rain, Like shipwrights' hammers tapping low,

Then loud, then low again.

"And a stately house one instant showed,

Through a rift, on the vessel's lee; What manner of creatures may be those

That built upon the sea?"

Then sighed the folk, "The Lord be praised!"

And they flocked to the shore amain:

All over the Hoe that livelong night, Many stood out in the rain.

It ceased; and the red sun reared his head,

And the rolling fog did flee;

And, lo! in the offing faint and far Winstanley's house at sea!

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 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 '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 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.

JEAN INGELOW.

FIDELITY.

A BARKING sound the shepherd hears,

A cry as of a dog or fox;

He halts, and searches with his eyes
Among the scattered rocks:
And now at distance can discern
A stirring in a brake of fern;
And instantly a dog is seen
Glancing from that covert green.

The dog is not of mountain breed;
Its motions, too, are wild and shy;
With something, as the shepherd
thinks,

Unusual in its cry:

Nor is there any one in sight

All round, in hollow or on height; Nor shout, nor whistle strikes his ear: What is the creature doing here?

It was a cove, a huge recess,
That keeps till June December's

snow;

A lofty precipice in front,
A silent tarn below!

Far in the bosom of Helvellyn,
Remote from public road or dwelling,
Pathway, or cultivated land,

From trace of human foot or hand.

There sometimes doth a leaping fish Send through the tarn a lonely cheer; The crags repeat the ravens' croak In symphony austere;

Thither the rainbow comes- the cloud

And mists that spread the flying. shroud;

And sunbeams: and the sounding

blast,

That, if it could, would hurry past, But that enormous barrier binds it fast.

Not free from boding thoughts, a while

The shepherd stood; then makes his way Towards the dog, o'er rocks and stones,

As quickly as he may;

Nor far had gone before he found
A human skeleton on the ground;
The appalled discoverer with a sigh
Looks round, to learn the history.
From those abrupt and perilous rocks
The man had fallen, that place of
fear!

At length upon the shepherd's mind
It breaks, and all is clear:
He instantly recalled the name,
And who he was, and whence he came;
Remembered, too, the very day
On which the traveller passed this
way.

But hear a wonder, for whose sake
This lamentable tale I tell!
A lasting monument of words
This wonder merits well.

The dog, which still was hovering nigh,

Repeating the same timid cry, This dog had been through three months' space

A dweller in that savage place.

Yes, proof was plain that since the day

On which the traveller thus had died The dog had watched about the spot, Or by his master's side:

How nourished here through such long time

He knows, who gave that love sublime,

And gave that strength of feeling, great

Above all human estimate.

WORDSWORTH.

HELVELLYN.

I CLIMBED the dark brow of the mighty Helvellyn,

Lakes and mountains beneath me gleamed misty and wide;

All was still, save by fits, when the eagle was yelling,

And starting around me the echoes replied.

Far adown the long aisle sacred music is streaming,

Lamenting a Chief of the People should fall.

But meeter for thee, gentle lover of nature,

To lay down thy head like the meek mountain lamb, When, wildered, he drops from some cliff huge in stature,

And draws his last sob by the side

of his dam.

And more stately thy couch by this desert lake lying,

Thy obsequies sung by the gray plover flying,

With one faithful friend but to witness thy dying,

In the arms of Helvellyn and
Catchedicam.

GEORGE NIDIVER.

MEN have done brave deeds,

SCOTT.

And bards have sung them well:
I of good George Nidiver
Now the tale will tell.

In Californian mountains
A hunter bold was he:
Keen his eye and sure his aim
As any you should see.

A little Indian boy

Followed him everywhere, Eager to share the hunter's joy, The hunter's meal to share.

And when the bird or deer

Fell by the hunter's skill, The boy was always near

To help with right good-will.
One day as through the cleft
Between two mountains steep,
Shut in both right and left,

Their questing way they keep,
They see two grizzly bears,
With hunger fierce and fell,
Rush at them unawares

Right down the narrow dell.

The boy turned round with screams,
And ran with terror wild:
One of the pair of savage beasts
Pursued the shrieking child.