of the 

 Sea, 



grave. But to some, beautiful rebels of the The 

 peoples of the Reed, the Grass, and the Fern, Gardens 



' > flf 4-1-1 A 



the doom went out that henceforth their place 

 should be in the waters . . . the running waters 

 of streams and rivers, the quiet waters of pools 

 and lakes, the troubled waters of the seas 

 along the coasts of the world, the ocean 

 depths. 



And that is how amid the salt bite of the 

 homeless wave there grew the Gardens of the 

 Sea. That is how it came about that the 

 weed trailed in running waters, and the sea- 

 moss swayed in brackish estuaries, and the 

 wrack clung or swam in tangles of olive-brown 

 and green and soft and dusky reds. 



What a long preamble to the story of how 

 the Seaweeds were once sweet-smelling blooms 

 of the shores and valleys ! Of how the flowers 

 of meadow and woodland, of the sun-swept 

 plain and the shadowy hill, had once song as 

 well as sweet odours : how, of these, many lost 

 not only fragrance but innocent beauty : and 

 how out of a rose and a blade of grass and a 

 breath of the wind the first birds were made, 

 the souls of the green earth, winged, and 

 voiced. 



To-day I sit amongst deep, shelving rocks 

 by the shore, in a desolate place where basaltic 

 cliffs shut away the familiar world, and where, 



215 



