SAND-DUNES 141 



things; for flowers that are beautiful dwell among them, 

 and flowers that are courageous in their daring invasion 

 of the beaches, and flowers that are cheerful under 

 stress of circumstances, and flowers that are merely- 

 rare. Hare's-foot trefoil, whose pink blooms are 

 hidden in a pearly mist, makes a sort of manna 

 scattered by the way ; soldanella spreads little arrow- 

 shaped leaves under the grey-green wheat -grass, and 

 opens her trumpets there ; sea-rocket creeps to the 

 very feet of the sea-horses that paw the beach at 

 high tides, and the great gulls look into its mauve eyes 

 as they strut on yellow feet in the harvest of the last 

 wave. Many other things, now scorched by Sum- 

 mer, find life in the sand ; stonecrops linger there, 

 and the salt- wort straggles, and the scentless mayweed 

 spreads with drooping rays and staring eyes. Above 

 the grasses, whose ripe seed-heads are the colour of 

 the dunes, arise creeping thistles and blaze noble heads 

 of ragwort, that sing a colour song ; while behind 

 them lie acres of deep green rushes, brushed with 

 the brown of their fruit and broken by spires of red 

 docks. Then the estuary of the river stretches like 

 a band of silver, and in the distance, under the haze 

 of Summer, there lie woodlands and cornfields upon 

 the bosom of a hill. 



I have seen dawn upon the Exe, and can remem- 

 ber how a great mist rolled down the river to meet 

 the morning. In billows it came under a breeze from 

 shore, hid all the heron-haunted flats and marshes, 

 heather-ridges and sleepy dunes ; then the risen sun 



