Page:Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands.djvu/222

Rh The crowned heads of York and Lancaster. —Gone are those days with all their deeds of arms, Their clangor echoing loud from shore to shore, Rousing the "shepherd-maiden" from her flocks To buckle on strange armor and preserve The endangered Gallic throne. With traveller's glance We turned from Warwick's castellated dome, Wrapped in its cloud of rich remembrances, And took our pilgrim way. There many a trait Of rural life we gathered up, to fill The outline of our picture, shaded strong By the dark pencil of old feudal times.

We saw a rustic household wandering forth That cloudless afternoon, perchance to make Some visit promised long, for each was clad With special care, as on a holiday. The father bore the baby awkwardly In his coarse arms, like tool or burden used About his work, yet kindly bent him down To hear its little murmur of delight. With a more practised hand the mother led One who could scarcely totter, its small feet Patting unequally,—from side to side Its rotund body balancing. Alone, Majestic in an added year, walked on Between the groups another ruddy one. She faltereth at the stile, but being raised And set upon the green sward, how she shouts,