408 APPENDIX. 



% 



The wind, the snow, for Warwick wrought, 



In sleet his arrows flew, 

 Through the long day the armies fought, 



Then Henry's host withdrew. 



To earth, death wrested then from hate, 



Cross-bows and axes fell, 

 Eich belts and ornamented plate, 



And graceful casquetel. 



And heaped in many a lofty mound, 



By pitying victors then, 

 That battle-field gave burial ground 



To forty thousand men ; 



And on those mounds the Roses twain 



Of civil strife, were set, 

 To mark the parties of the slain, 



With symbols of regret. 



Almost four centuries have fled 



Since that disastrous day, 

 Each proud Plantagenet is dead, 



Their race has passed away. 



Scarce can the characters be read 

 Which edge Lord Dacre's tomb, 



Yet still the roses, White and Eed, 

 On Towton's ridges bloom. 



And thence a wandering Cymo's hand 



These tiny cuttings sent, 

 Which may, perchance, yet live to stand 



Their poet's monument ! 



In the " Memoirs Illustrative of the History and 

 Antiquities of the County and City of York July, 

 1846, published by the Archaeological Institute, will 

 be found an interesting paper on this subject written 



