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ROUND ABOUT RYE 73
Marsh. From here one looks down the edge of the cliff to a line of black, tarred boat-buildings below, and on the slips there are sometimes to be seen the bare keels and ribs of fishing boats in the course of building.
You may study the wide-spreading marshland and realise that strange kinship between personality and place which Kipling expresses in " Dymchurch Flit." It is easy to understand why the marsh-folk are old-fashioned and reserved, for the utter desolation of the landscape with " its steeples settin' beside churches, an' wise women settin' beside their doors, and the sea settin' above the land, an' ducks herdin' wild in the diks' " makes a gloomy picture. However, the marsh people love this landscape, which, it is true, possesses an interest and a character of its own. The clumps of elm, birch, or willow, here and there springing from a grassy knoll—the water-courses, rich in aquatic plants and frondent weeds—the wide stretches of broad green pasturage, sprinkled with grazing flocks—the far-off hamlet, and the grey old spire rising above its low, thatched roofs —and, from certain points, the wide sweep of the channel waters, bounded in the distance by a bank of clouds—all these features have inspired artists and poets. I cannot refrain from giving |
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