232 NATURE NEAR LONDON, 



THE BREEZE ON BE ACHY HEAD. 



The waves coming round the promontory before the 

 west wind still give the idea of a flowing stream, as 

 the}^ did in Homer's days. Here beneath the cliff, 

 standing where beach and sand meet, it is still ; the 

 wind passes six hundred feet overhead. But yonder, 

 every larger wave rolling before the breeze breaks 

 over the rocks ; a white line of spray rushes along 

 them, gleaming in the sunshine ; for a moment the 

 dark rock-wall disappears, till the spray sinks. 



The sea seems higher than the spot where I stand, 

 its surface on a higher level — raised like a green 

 mound — as if it could burst in and occupy the space 

 up to the foot of the cliff in a moment. It will not 

 do so, I know ; but there is an infinite possibility 

 about the sea ; it may do what it is not recorded to 

 have done. It is not to be ordered, it may overleap 

 the bounds human observation has fixed for it. It 

 has a potency unfathomable. There is still something 

 in it not quite grasped and understood — something 

 still to be discovered — a mystery. 



So the white spray rushes along the low broken 

 wall of rocks, the sun gleams on the flying fragments 

 of the W'ave, again it sinks, and the rhythmic motion 



