SAND-DUNES 



UT yesterday I walked where mat-grass 

 chevels the sand-dunes with meagre green ; 

 and remembered that thirty years ago I 

 ran here and rolled in the sand. All is un- 

 changed ; yet, in that my mind has weathered three 

 decades and returned from a world of work and 

 experience, nothing can again be as it has been ; 

 nothing can evermore take the same colours, for 

 young eyes see no cloud-shadows. Then these sand- 

 hills were a procession of lion-coloured monsters, 

 wandering in awful company by the waters ; and the 

 scanty grasses served for bristling hair upon them ; 

 and I imagined these gigantic and sinister things as 

 leaping into the narrow channel where Exe flows to 

 sea, and crossing over it that they might devour a 

 little town upon the other side. Yet me they hurt 

 not, and I would lie upon their hot breasts fearlessly, 

 roll in the soft sand, speculate on the purple of 

 the sea-holly, prick my fingers with it, tumble and 

 bask, and, gazing upward, build my secure kingdom, 

 fortress, home, in the pinnacles of a summer cloud. 

 I loved to dream in these old sand-dunes. I can 



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