But a truce to badinage.  True poetry is not a thing to laugh at and disdain, for it is the salt of life, which makes existence endurable, and gives a savour to our worldly toil.

Pierce, a modern poet, hits off the shores of Jethou capitally, thus: 

“Lucent wave! 
Flash in sparkling bells
On the coloured stones and tiny shells;
With low music lave
Sheltering rock,
Flood the glassy pool,
Sway the foliage ’neath its crystal cool,
Wake with gentle shock
The anemonae,
That like some lovely flower
Petals opening ’neath the sunlight’s power,
Its beauty spreads to thee.”

At low tide—­or rather, at half tide—­may be seen a huge square-headed fissure or cave quite through a portion of La Fauconnaire.  Its sides are walls of granite, and the roof is also of that stone, from ten to twelve feet high on the average, but much more in parts.  Although daylight is admitted at each end of this tunnel it is somewhat gloomy in the centre, which perhaps adds to its charms, as objects are seen less clearly, thus giving more scope to the imagination, of which daylight is frequently a great destroyer.  Semi-gloom causes one to speculate upon things which, seen in the broad glare of day, have nothing of mystery or wonder about them; they are but too evident to the eye.  A grammar-school education does not permit of great descriptive flights, or this cavern would be for me an exquisite theme upon which to write a chapter on fairyland.

The walls of this vaulted chamber sparkled from the constant dripping of water, which appeared to ooze from the sides and roof as the tide went down; but what appeared most noticeable was the pink hue of these walls, which upon closer inspection appeared to be lined with a kind of coral, or some such substance, while here and there from roof and walls depended most lovely fern-like sea-weed, whose long fronds waved gracefully in the grateful breeze which came in from the south end in puffs, just enough to stir the glorious pool of water covering the whole floor of the cave.  The chamber is not very wide, probably not more than from four to five feet, so that the pool on the floor forms a miniature lake of surpassing beauty, some forty or fifty feet long, and from one to two feet deep; but the contents and the arrangement of that pool who shall describe?  In this small space may be found animal and vegetable life of all kinds, anemonae, lovely weeds, zoophytes, curious fish, sponges, shells, coral, and a hundred other things, all in such perfection and orderly wildness that no artificial aquarium can ever hope to present, for they are made by hands, and can never vie with Nature in the formation of the wild and picturesque aspect of these rocky pools.

As the sea filled this cave at every tide there was always something new for me to admire whenever I made a visit, and my only regret was that I could not take it home with me if I should be spared to see Norfolk again.