The Eddystone Light
Starwards swept the watchman's eye,
And onwards swept the fleet.
Sails hauled in tight
Foamed on the night
And landlights to the starboard lay.
The sailors pressed and those of aye
Thought on to land and homely kind,
But Fate that night
Had other sight
Than find those ships in Dover bay.
The spring-tide seas rose green then cave
Yet British oak would creak but stay.
No masted sight
Called "left" or "right",
And onward still sailed glad array.
Sir Cloudesley in his hammock lay
No doubt but to his Queen return
That which of right
Emblazon might,
And wider draw her glorious sway.
In foc'sle damp with sea-sting spray,
A sailor's hand took cup and bell--
For his babe might
Yet hold it tight
And know its father home a-day.
He could not count, nor tell the day
His pretty bride might labour in:
A neighbour tight
Held first in fright,
Then crying out, to take--her babe!
To rock her child in hammock sway
Until their wedding oath they gave.
The press-gang fright
Took Tom that night;
Her tears were all their wedding gay.
Yet town-folk told the coming day
The fleet in harbour sure would find
Glad rest from night
And fear to sight
Dark rocks and shoals along the way.
No lantern hung to show the spray,
No tower high above the main,
Canvas billowed mast-height,
Thrust hulls on right
To meet dark rocks below their sway.
But storm-pressed ships and blinded way,
No warning gave of doom beneath,
Fleet benighted quite
Stove without fight
Upon the hidden hell-weather bay.
Foaming crests and ice-cold spray
Awash amongst the planks and say
Pump green--pump white--
"Now let them bite"
The sailors sought to oust their prey.
The canons boomed to call to weigh
To any ship who heard their bay.
But storm-seas' bite
O'ercame their fight
And morning's wrecks were all there staved.
His poor wife's tears were Tom's sole lay;
And little Tom an orphan brave
To cabin-boy: "Fight,
For the Queen's Might"--
And thus came to old Tom, and i-stayed.
by "Magnus", December 2006: part fiction
(Intellectual Property of CMTilbury 2006)
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