From the ruined fragments we mentally reconstruct the scene of the interior, the single courtyard in the centre, the two-story buildings all around with the chapel going up through both stories, and we note with astonishment the comparative convenience and comfort of the arrangements of the compact little fortalice. Certainly Bodiam (or Bojum, as it is pronounced locally) is the most picturesque castle in the south, many say in the whole, of England. Nestling in the little valley, surrounded by luxuriant greenery, it has not the impressive grandeur of the stronghold flaunting its strength at the head of some precipitous cliff, or bidding defiance to the hungry seas, but it has a beauty more at one with the spirit of Sussex and the south. And yet, Bodiam is a place of inviolate mystery. You can fall in love with its unique situation, with its delightful lily-covered, bird-haunted setting; you can be impressed by its note of artistic completeness; but always there is something of loneliness and horror about the place. Its walls are grey, but not with the grey of other castles. It is a cold, pitiless grey, no matter how the sun shine, no matter how the water throw up again the quivering light. There is a shudder in the air on the blithest summer day. Perhaps it is that places, no less than men, gradually take upon them a personality. If that is so, then surely Bodiam has taken the personality of its old founder, Dalyngrigge, a bleak enough man, if records speak truly, a man dark in deed and light of word. At Bodiam we leave this Enchanted Garden; and as we go we begin to wonder that a place so rich in memories and in charm has no representative poet, or, indeed, school of poets. Sussex in general seems to have been sadly neglected by our singers. Kipling has probably sung most in her praises; but even for Kipling the great chalk downs have always been Sussex. And most of our other poets--Habberton Lulham, Arthur F. Bell, Rosamund Watson, Wilfred Scawen Blunt--have followed in his steps. Only occasionally has one ventured down into the marshlands and the low rolling hills and the little river valleys in quest of beauty. And yet beauty indescribable is here for the seeking. Probably the poet who knows us best is Ford Maddox Hueffer, whose volume, _The Cinque Ports_, contains some magnificent word-pictures of these happy little hills and dales, and whose novel, _The 'Half Moon'_, gives such a faithful picture of Rye of ancient days. The following fragment from one of his poems gives the marsh in all its beauty: "Up here, where the air's very clear, And the hills slope away nigh down to the bay, It is very like Heaven.... "For the sea's wine-purple and lies half asleep In the sickle of the shore and, serene in the west, Lion-like purple and brooding in the even, Low hills lure the sun to rest.