ROMNEY MARSH



'Proceeding from a source of untaught things'
(Prelude xiii. 310)

Here is Appledore; over there is Romney Marsh. The sky has partly
cleared after heavy, south-westerly rain. On the horizon where the
sea lies the clouds are in a line, and the air is so clear that
their edges are sharp against the blue. Nearer to me they are
slowly dissolving, re-forming, and moving eastwards, and their
shadows are crossing the wide grassy plain on which in the distance
Lydd Church is just discernible. I can report something of those
greys and that azure, but the best part of what is before me will
not outline itself to me. Still less can I shape it in speech.
Necessity, majestic inevitable movement, the folly of heat and
hurry, all this emerges and again is blended in the simple unity of
transcendent loveliness. But beyond there is something so close, so
precious! and yet elusive of every effort to grasp it.


She came to meet me from the line
Where lies the ocean miles away;
And now she's close; she must be mine:
I wait the word that she must say.