something of the atmosphere and color of the period in which the action takes place, though the story is supposed to be told at a later date.     

  

       WYNDHAM TOWERS.     

      Before you reach the slender, high-arched bridge, Like to a heron with one foot in stream, The hamlet breaks upon you through green boughs—      A square stone church within a place of graves Upon the slope; gray houses oddly grouped, With plastered gables set with crossed oak-beams, And roofs of yellow tile and purplish slate.      That is The Falcon, with the swinging sign And rustic bench, an ancient hostelry; Those leaden lattices were hung on hinge In good Queen Bess's time, so old it is. On ridge-piece, gable-end, or dove-cot vane, A gilded weathercock at intervals Glimmers—an angel on the wing, most like, Of local workmanship; for since the reign Of pious Edward here have carvers thrived, In saints'-heads skillful and winged cherubim Meet for rich abbeys. From yon crumbling tower, Whose brickwork base the cunning Romans laid—      And now of no use else except to train The ivy of an idle legend on—      You see, such lens is this thin Devon air, If it so chance no fog comes rolling in, The Torridge where its branching crystal spreads To join the Taw. Hard by from a chalk cliff A torrent leaps: not lovelier Sappho was Giving herself all silvery to the sea From that Leucadian rock. Beneath your feet Lie sand and surf in curving parallels. Off shore, a buoy gleams like a dolphin's back Dripping with brine, and guards a sunken reef Whose sharp incisors have gnawed many a keel; There frets the sea and turns white at the lip, And in ill-weather lets the ledge show fang. A very pleasant nook in Devon, this, Upon the height of old was Wyndham Towers, Clinging to rock there, like an eagle's nest, With moat and drawbridge once, and good for siege; Four towers it had to front the diverse winds:      Built God knows when, all record being lost, Locked in the memories of forgotten men. In Caesar's day, a pagan temple; next A monastery; then a feudal hold; Later a manor, and at last a ruin. Such knowledge have we of it, vaguely caught Through whispers fallen from tradition's lip. This shattered tower, with crenellated top And loops for archers, alone marks the spot, Looming forlornly—a gigantic harp Whereon the invisible fingers of the wind Its fitful and mysterious dirges play. Here 

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