But towards evening of the third day I began to
approach the sea.
I listened to the wailing of its long-winged gulls; snuffed with how
broad-nostrilled a gusto that savour not even pinewoods can match,
nor any wild flower disguise; and heard at last the sound that stirs
beneath all music--the deep's loud-falling billow.
I pushed ashore, climbed the sandy bank, and moored my boat to an ash
tree at the waterside. And after scrambling some little distance over
dunes yet warm with the sun, I came out at length, and stood like a
Greek before the sea.
Here my bright river disembogued in noise and foam. Far to either side
of me stretched the faint gold horns of a bay; and beyond me, almost
violet in the shadow of its waves, the shipless sea.
I looked on the breaking water with a divided heart. Its light, salt
airs, its solitary beauty, its illimitable reaches seemed tidings of a
region I could remember only as one who, remembering that he has
dreamed, remembers nothing more. Larks rose, singing, behind me. In a
calm, golden light my eager river quarrelled with its peace. Here
indeed was solitude!
It was in searching sea and cliff for the least sign of life that I
thought I descried on the furthest extremity of the nearer of the
horns of the bay the spires and smouldering domes of a little city.
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