Meadows of Asphodel, 53 



carried home to light their cottage dwellings rich arm- 

 fuls of the plundered gold. 



Perhaps the forgotten warriors, whose mail-clad 

 effigies guard now the porch of yonder church, re- 

 membered long these sunny fields. 



Marlborough's stately duchess may have wandered 

 many a time in fancy back to this quiet Mendip 

 village, where she, too, a careless child, played in these 

 meadows of asphodel. 



Round another house some miles away, which 

 tradition also points to as a home of hers, are daffodils 

 again. 



Not in broad sheets gilding the level fields, but 

 peering out of hedgerows, skirting the edges of wood- 

 lands, leaning over the waters of the brook that, 

 breaking from its dark chamber in the hill, steals 

 away to join the lazy river that winds across the moor- 

 land to the sea. 



Higher up among the hills, in a rocky valley over- 

 grown with thickets, is a great colony of daffodils that 

 have found a spot more picturesque perhaps, though 

 without the striking effect of the rich masses that 

 spread untrammelled in the open. 



The ground is honeycombed with crumbling shafts 

 and ruined galleries, piled with heaps of rubbish and 

 strewn with refuse ore. 



These hills are rich in metal. They have had a 

 long history. The ores of Somerset were known even 

 to Tyrian traders. The Roman conquerors laid eager 



