now accomplished. Wyndham Towers is not to be confused with this
discarded sketch, the text of which has furnished only a phrase, or
an indirect suggestion, here and there. That the writer's method,
when recasting the poem, was more or less influenced by the poets
he had been studying--chiefly the dramatists of the Elizabethan
era--will, he hopes, be obvious. It was part of his design,
however far he may have fallen from it, to give his narrative
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