The Last Lighthouse

Something's stirring.
Something grows
Old Albion in waking throes?
Will it sweep all to the sea
An act of grand finality?

 Or, sad and lost in venal sight,
condemned to search in ailing light 
for some dim echo ceased-to-be,
or shape it blind, from memory?

There's nothing here, my dear
Save the last lighthouse
where a keeper tends a guttering flame
against a gathering squall

We will recede into the slate-grey tide
to commune with other shipwrecks
and forget