3KBREEZE ON BEACHY H E A D :g 



On a calm day, when the surface is smooth as 

 if the brimming ocean had been straked the rod 

 passed across the top of the measure, thrusting off 

 the irregularities of wave; when the distant green 

 from long simmering under the sun becomes pale; 

 when the sky, without cloud, but with some slight 

 haze in it, likewise loses its hue, and the two so 

 commingle in the pallor of heat that they cannot 

 be separated then the still ships appear sus- 

 pended in space. They are as much held from 

 above as upborne from beneath. 



They are motionless, midway in space 

 whether it is sea or air is not to be known. 

 They neither float nor fly, they are suspended. 

 There is no force in the flat sail, the mast is life- 

 less, the hull without impetus. For hours they 

 linger, changeless as the constellations, still, silent, 

 motionless, phantom vessels on a void sea. 



Another climb up from the sheep path, and it is 

 not far then to the terrible edge of that tremen- 

 dous cliff which rises straighter than a ship's side 

 out of the sea, six hundred feet above the detached 

 rock below, where the limpets cling like rivet 

 heads, and the sand rills run around it. But it is 

 not possible to look down to it the glance of 

 necessity falls outwards, as a raindrop from the 

 eaves is deflected by the wind, because it is the 

 edge where the mould crumbles ; the rootlets of 

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