A Woodland Walk, by William Billington

‘A Woodland Walk’ by Lancashire Poet William Billington (1825-1884), born at the Ribble valley village of Samlesbury on the 3rd April, 1825

A Woodland Walk

I wandered forth to watch the infant Day

Sow diamonds over plain and woodland copse;

The Sun, just glancing o’er the mountains gray,

With slanting beams, illumed their grassy slopes;

Though bright and buoyant as the golden hopes

Of sanguine Youth in its serenest hour,

My spirit bowed in homage to that Power

Which caused the buds to burst-the birds to sing

With melody, which made that woodland ring-

Its echo-haunted caverns sweetly moan!

The speckled Lark, borne on sky-sweeping wing

Above the clouds, his matin strains did pour;
The loud-tongued Throstle’s half familiar tone.

Seemed fraught with secrets which the soul ere birth had known.

The snowy locks of Winter, being smote

By Spring’s rose-wreathëd wand, had disappeared,

His feeble feet seemed sinking in the tomb,

The icicles had fallen from his beard,

The Primrose on the bank began to bloom,

The Redbreast sang in the unblossomed broom,

The Blackbird’s deep and mellow-sounding note

Rang through the bosky dingle’s hollow throat

And, wave-like rippling, mocked the vocal stream,

While overhanging trees did listening seem

To catch those strains which down that stream did float;

The very rocks and knolls appeared to dream of rapture!

The still air seemed full of thought!

And Heaven’s blue bell above with God-smiles interwrought.

And “This is Nature! this!” I loudly cried,

“So often nicknamed Step-dame by the rude and impious, who observe but her night-side”

“Whose hare-eyed vision glimmers but one way,”

“Which doth the light of Deity exclude,
as bats and owls beneath the blaze of day”

“Grow blind in uncongenial light, so they
find earth a ‘Vale of Tears’-a solitude!”

“Hence, their world-theories desolate and crude, and blasphemous.

When ‘Man was made to mourn’

“Becomes the watchword, Freedom sighs forlorn,

“And Hope becomes an outcast, seldom viewed; truth’s flowers are trampled-and though Earth displayed”

“The pride of Eden’s prime, Man’s rose of bliss would fade!”

A B-H