Henry Winstanley

HENRY WINSTANLEY

Inventive practical joker,
what made you abandon
your imprisoning seats,
chairs that descended
or slowly rose, frightening
their occupants to the
delight of your family?

The sea had laughed at you
tossing two of your five ships
to pulp on the Eddystone reef.
You were not the first
who demanded action
having lost a valuable cargo
only sixteen miles from Plymouth.

But none else took up the challenge.

Who before had tried,
on an isolated, wave-swept rock
facing the full fury
of the wild Atlantic ocean,
to build a tower,
to light a light
to save seafarers?

Which dastardly French pirate
was it captured you there
and found himself the prisoner?
King Louis recognised your aim;
French ships too had foundered
on the treacherous Eddystone reef.
He was at war with England,
not with humanity.
Louis wined you, dined you,
set you free.

Three years in building,
you lit the candles yourself.
No ships were lost
on the Eddystone that year.
Your greatest wish
was to be in your tower
during the greatest storm
that ever was seen !

For four years your tower stood
until that November night,
seventeen hundred and three,
when your wish was granted.
Eight hundred houses in the
West of England collapsed;
one hundred and twenty-three
lost their lives on land;
at least eight thousand at sea.
Nothing of you nor your tower
remained at daylight.

Two days later the Winchelsea was lost.

Because your structure failed
to stay that storm
later lighthouse engineers knew
the mistakes that they then must avoid.
The way for safe shipping
and for safe design was possible
only after you had made
that original brave attempt.

© Gerald England

Composed: Ashton under Lyne, 1st June 1980

Publication

2005 Sons of Camus Writers International Journal (Canada)