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Chapter I
RAMBLES ABOUT BURWASH
Burwash and the adjoining parishes are peculiarly the Kipling country. His home is here, and he has made this part of Sussex his very own in one of the most beautiful poems written on an English county. His verses on Sussex are imperishable. By sheer force of their lyric genius they must of necessity make the author talked about in the same way a hundred years hence as Keats is talked of to-day. This poem is a perfect example of that immortal magic of words which is found at its highest in our early ballads of the country-side. It breathes realisation of man's unity with nature, which is perhaps the finest form of poetry. Mystery and wonder are here, and the authentic thrill of the soul in the presence of that fourth dimension which does not exist for the stranger :
" So to the land our hearts we give Till the sure magic strike, And Memory, Use and Love make live Us and our fields alike—
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