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it and artists to sketch. Two girls, sitting ona
rock under the shade of the fence, were attempt-
ing it then.

But of all the stories, nothing pleased me so
much as about “the fe-ads.” Away up towards
the tower, as we noticed from without, were holes
bored through the timber, as if this one had indeed
served some John Ridd for a mark, but from some-
thing that carried a ball bigger than his father’s

old matchlock would admit. And when we climbed

the mealy stair and wondered aloud at the holes
bored smooth through the timbers, the miller said
it was “the Zeaks did it:” wood-peckers, red-
headed ones, that in this way made themselves
refuges from winter and the storm. A hard way
it seemed; a queer bit of bird calculation, a labo-
rious provision for time of need; an unnecessary
piece of work one would think ; “ but they do it,”
he said, “and round here we call them Ze-aks.”
That was at West Falmouth; further along at
Falmouth itself is another; over at Pocasset still

HEROINES OF THE POETS.

another; away near. the Highland Light on the
back side of the Cape one looms up; in a word
wind-mills are not hard to find in that historic
region of New England; and if we have not one
as fanciful as that of Sans Souci or of Mont-
martre, or those on the Elbe, which our artist has
pictured, have we not the quaint “round tower”
at Newport which might have been a wind-mill
but was not—or rather it is a disputed question
concerning which much has been written ; see what
Longfellow says about it in his introduction to
“The Skeleton in Armor.”

You know, perhaps, how fond he was of such
subjects, and how, about the time he wrote his
poem “ The Wind-mill,” he said to a visitor, “ The
Germans love to write of such homely topics, and
I love them for it,” and he went across the room .
and pulled down German books from the shelf and
read about all sorts and kinds of mills, saw-mills,
grist-mills, wind-mills ; for he too loved the homely,
the quaint, the picturesque wherever found,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HEROINES OF THE POETS.

KEAT’S MADELINE.

CASEMENT high and triple-arched there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damasked wings;
And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens
and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair
breast,

As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and
boon ;

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven :— Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal
taint.
From“ The Eve of St. Agnes.”