THOUGHTS FROM WRITINGS 



thought. — ' Field and Hedgerow ' : x 

 Hours of Spring. 



IN time past, strong of foot, I walked 

 gaily up the noble hill that leads 

 to Beachy Head from Eastbourne, 

 joying greatly in the sun and the wind. 

 Every step crumbled up numbers of 

 minute grey shells, empty and dry, that 

 crunched under foot like hoar-frost or 

 fragile beads. They were very pretty; 

 it was a shame to crush them — such 

 vases as no king's pottery could make. 

 They lay by millions in the depths of 

 the sward, and I thought as I broke 

 them unwillingly that each of these had 

 once been a house of life. A living 

 creature dwelt in each and felt the joy 

 of existence, and was to itself all in all 

 — as if the great sun over the hill shone 

 for it, and the width of the earth under 

 was for it, and the grass and plants put 



1 ' Field and Hedgerow ' : Longmans, Green & Co. 



90 



