“O mistress mine, where are you roaming?
O stay and hear; your true love’s coming,
That can sing both high and low.”
And somewhere he came on her, and coaxed the secret of
UNDER THE WILLOWS
her woodland music. But when that meeting was, and how that secret was given, like a true lover, he will never tell.
“Others abide our questions; thou art free:
We ask and ask; thou smilest and art still.”
As we paddled down past Tiddington the willows grew closer. Between their stems we could see, far away on our left, the blue Edge Hills; and to the right, above the Warwick road, a hill surmounted by an obelisk. This is Welcome, and behind it lies Clopton House, a former owner of which, Sir Hugh Clopton, Lord Mayor of London, built in the reign of Henry VII. the long stone bridge of fourteen Gothic arches just above Stratford. In a minute or two we had passed under this bridge and were floating down beside the Memorial Theatre, the new Gardens, and the brink of Shakespeare’s town.
THE CLOPTON BRIDGE, STRATFORD-UPON-AVON