Page:Poetical works of Mathilde Blind.djvu/66

40 "We had some delightful boating on the Avon, but the river seems so very much left to its own sweet will that the locks have fallen to pieces from disuse. In consequence of this there are rapids and shallows which produce quite an excitement, as we had to clamber up the banks and over stiles while the men of the party, divested of some of their garments, had to pull the boats over the weirs and shallow places. But it was well worth the trouble to get to the beautiful Clive woods, mirrored in the still, green water, and the sedgy pools and fairy eyots sky-blue with forget-me-nots. Now and then a kingfisher shot across the stream in a flash of blue lightning, or a coot skimmed its surface from bank to bank. The willows bending over the banks, with their silver lining turned to the breeze, whispered dreamily at evening as if they were remembering old, sad things of long ago."

"September 21st.

"The charm of Stratford grows upon me the longer I remain. I drove to Wilmcote this afternoon, and saw Mary Arden's house, a sweet old cottage said to be four or five hundred years old. The timbered walls and mighty oaken beams of roof and ceiling show that it must have been a place of some importance in Shakespeare's day. It strikes one everywhere hereabouts how plentiful wood must have been at that time, when all these villages and hamlets were still embosomed in the green recesses of the Forest of Arden. One seems to come upon Shakespeare's tracks here, and to get into closer touch with him and such plays as 'As You Like It' and 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'

" Memories and echoes of merry old England seem to have survived in Warwickshire longer than anywhere else. They tell us that on the 12th of October there will