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The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Including His Translations and Notes
The Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Including His Translations and Notes Author:Henry Wadsworth Longfellow General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1864 Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million book... more »s for free. Excerpt: BALLADS. THE SKELETON IN ARMOUR The following Ballad was suggested to me while riding on the seashore at Newport. A year or two previous a skcleton had been dug up at Fall River, clad in broken and corroded armour; and the idea occurred to me of connecting it with the Round Tower at Newport, generally known hitherto as the Old Windmill, though now claimed by the Danes as a work of their early ancestors. Professor Kafn, in the Mtmoins 4? la SxMi Roynte des A ntvpiaira da iVord, for 1833-1839, says : -- " There is no mistaking, in this instance, the style in which the more ancient stone edifices of the North were coustructed, the style which belongs to the Roman or Ante-Gothic Architecture, and which, especially after the time of Charlemagne, diffused iUelf from Italy over the whole of the West and North of Europe, where it continued to predominate until the close of the 12th century; that stvie which some authors have, from one of its most striking characteristies, called the round arch style, the same which in England is denominated Haxon and sometimes Norman Architecture. "On the ancient structure in Newport there are no ornaments remaining, whi'-h might possibly have served to guide us in assigning the probable date of its erection. That no vestige whatever is found of the porated arch, nor any approximation to it, is indicative of an earlier, ratiier than of a later period. From inch characteristies as remain, however, we can scarcely form any other inference than one, in which I am persuaded that all, who are familiar with Old Northern architecture, will concur, That Thib Building Was Erected ...« less