Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-10-10

first, over into the clean, cool square below.
Quaint shops just now opening, are plnched
In between staid old mansions. Bandboxes
of inns, scores of them, each striving to out
do the other in curious name or escutcheon
suggestive fthe one memory Of the slumber-
Gus old town, speck the gray tacades with
gilt and color.
HAUNTS OF THE BARD.
Down one of those streets, old Henley
street, through whose windings glimpse
of the uplands Is caught, you know is to
be found the house of all others in STRAIT
ford. But you turn In the opposite direc-
tion. You pass an ancient inn named for
the bard. Each of its rooms is given the
name of some one of the characters he ere
ated.
Old stone houses with the oldest of peaks,
gables and pent-houses over huge oaken
doors are passed. At some, old men and
women are nodding, even in these morning
hours, at the open windows.
A few steps among the graves beneath
huge elms bring you to the river side, for
the Avon he loved laves the sides of the
churchyard walls. L is so still and silent
here you feel that the very spirit of the
stream is hushed in obeisance and reverence
for the spot its waters are passing On the
farther side are long. lonesome meadows.
A few sheep are grazing there. Up the
stream to the right, above the masses of
trees and tiles, looms the huge, obese
Memorial Hall. You resent it, as you have
already turned away from the perky white
fountain in mellow old High street Every
thing modern here that seeks to memorial
ize men or committees of to-day through
fantastic memorials to this very sun of the
English race and tongue, hurts you with its
brazen impertinence.
ANN HATHAwAY'S COTTAGE
A footpath leads to a messy wooden
bridge. You cross this, take to the
meadows, with the river, church and town
to your left, and cross the fields to Shottery.
Here is typical English village, criss-
crossed with stone walls, and hedges cut in
high box patterns, and brown with thatched
roofs, so old that birds and mice use them
for nests while wild flowers and weeds
grow luxuriously upon them.
Instinctively you approach the Oldest and
quaintest structure in Shottery. Its gable
overhangs the lane. Its south side faces
maze of vines and flowers; and four tiny
windows, hooded bv the thatching, peep
over into the breeze and bloom. 1t is Ann
Hathaway's cottage A pleasant old
woman, whom YOU feel must have known
the maid and man, hustles about shows you
the interior; the ancient "settle" where the
love-making was done, the visitors book
with its priceless autographs, even the heir
looms of linen more lasting than efigy or
cenotaph of stone, the while chatting
cheerily, as if the lids of time always
opened upon her, as upon a bright and
stainless page. But you have not heard
what was said The old lady's words have
blended with the autumn voices without.
down the silences of more than 300 years.
sHAKEsPEARE's MoDERNIzED HOUSE
Back across the Avon, as you stand before
the birthplace of Shakespeare, a spruce
enough structure since its restoration"
with gabled porch, an Elizabethan window
in the next story, and a peaked dormer
window outjutting from the steep-pitched
roof above; all with pretty garden at the
side and back. 1t seems a long time before
the jangling bell is answered. Finally
another beaming old lady appears and you
follow her silently within. There is very
little to see; incommunicable things to feel
There are two rooms below; and two
above One of the latter is a sort of
museum, and you find little interest here >.
In the other, the bard was born. Which
fact thrills you most powerfully-that here
of humanity to men, or that the once white
wall is black with the names of great andl
mighty of all lands and chimes, who have 1
come and reverently left these signs of
tribute to what was soimmortally revealed?
Yet how little is there for simply the
eyes TO look upon-the interior of a modest
church of the thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, crucitorm, with central
tower and spire, and aisles to the nave only; |
marrow chancel inclining strangely to the |
north; ancient oaken pews with curiously |
,arved misereres beneath.
KNEELING AT TsHAKEsPEARE's TOMB.
The evening descends and the last soft |
football has recrossed the worn stone thres- |
hold and passed like a whisper over the |
lime-leaves beyond. The an
cient verger dons his hat and iangles his |
KEYS Like wrath of your own dreaming |
self YOU pass swiftly to the chancel and |
zneel in the darkening old church beside |
lne grave for a moment alone-at Shakes |
Deare's tomb.
Once where a spray of apple bloom,
Hung DER my garden wall
There came vagrant oTiole
To flood the music of its soul
Full in my open-windowed room.
4 fieck of gold with voice of Lutte,
Within my easement swung
MY own sweet prisoned singing-bird-
Whose tribute, which the master stirred,
eft it aglaSt and mute.
Thus came his flight and canticle,
Flooding Songs dawn with Day.
Thus We athrill and tribute-st1rred,
Like my poor prisoned Singing-bird,
7alter loVe-dumb and still.
EDGAR L. WAKEMAN,