Towards democracy, str. 68

54 Towards Democracy

XXXVIII

England spreads like a map below me. TI see the mud-flats of the Wash striped with water at low tide, the embankments grown with mugwort and sea-asters, and Boston Stump and King’s Lynn, and the squaresail brigs in the offing,

Beachy Head stands up beautiful, with white walls and pinnacles, from its slopes of yellow poppy and bugloss; the sea below creeps with a grey fog, the vessels pass and are folded out of sight within it. I hear their foghorns sounding.

Flamborough Head stands up, dividing the waves. Up its steep gullies the fishermen haul their boats ; in its caves the waters make perpetual music.

I see the rockbound coast of Anglesey with projecting tibs of wrecks; the hills of Wicklow are faintly outlined across the water. I ascend the mountains of Wales; the tarns and streams lie silver below me, the valleys are dark. Moel Siabod stands up beautiful, and Trifan and Cader Idris in the morning air.

I descend the Wye, and pass through the ancient streets of Monmouth and of Bristol. I thread the feathery birch-haunted coombs of Somerset.

I ascend the high points of the Cotswolds, and look out over the rich vale of Gloucester to the Malvern hills, and see the old city clustering round its Church, and the broad waters of the severn, and the distant towers of Berkeley Castle.

The river-streams run on below me. The broad deepbosomed Trent through rich meadows full of cattle, under tall shady trees runs on. I trace it to its birthplace in the