Recollections Of Childhood Poem by William Billington

INHABITANT of mine own native vale,
Sweet-scented consort of the red wild-rose
Which pours its perfume on the summer's gale,
As thou dost upon every breeze that blows,
When morning smiles, or when the day doth close
In fiery grandeur flaming from the west,
O! how I long to drink the tide that flows
Like nectar-streams through thy ambrosial breast,
With feelings such as once my infant heart possessed.

When in my father's cottage I did dwell,
Ere seven summers since my birth had fled,
Death's fatal summons broke the fairy spell
That bound my heart, and o'er my youthful head
A halo of enjoyment ever shed,
Inspiring hopes of bliss through future years:
Yes-laid a father sleeping with the dead,
And turned those hopes and joys to sighs and tears,
And taught how much an infant's heart unbroken bears.

For in that cot, of which I mention made,
The happiest hours of life's long day were spent;
The morning of existence there I played
Away in ceaseless joy and merriment;
And still the scenes, which I then did frequent,
Are truly mirrored in my memory's glass,
Though Fortune's ruthless hand hath long since rent
Me from their much-loved presence, and, alas!
Instilled the hopeless wish to be what then I was.

To wander in the woods, as once I did,
And listen to the music of the grove;
To view the towering pine, or pyramid
Of rocks, glassed in the torrent, from above
While heaven's blue to earth's deep centre drove
Its bending arch, and on my wondering eye
Flashed images of beauty-stars that move
In harmony through ether's realms on high,
Deep-tossing in the gulf of an inverted sky.

My heart beat with a sense of love and beauty
That dwelt in every sylvan sound I heard,
The woodland walk I made my daily duty,
And to all other pleasures, I preferred
To list and learn the song of every bird
Whose love-notes echoed from each flowery nook,
Till loud, hoarse bleatings of the lowing herd,
Mixed with the bubbling music of the brook,
Sang farewell to the day as Sol the west forsook.

Then to the top of an adjacent hill,
To watch the setting sun, when clouds of splendour
And fire-flushed light the western skies did fill,
And upward streams of sunbeams bright did render
Their skirts transparent, piercing them with slender
Sharp shafts of gold and flame, whose tints did seem
Than lovely Flora's cheeks more soft and tender-
They faded like the drapery of a dream,
When Ocean swallowed Phœbus and his fiery team.

Then slowly down the steep hill's flowery side
With cautious steps the winding ways I wended,
To view the roses veil their blushing pride
And hang their heads as evening's dew descended-
Contract their petals, which had been extended
From morn till eve, to sip the solar ray,
Till, as dun Night her sable throne ascended,
All bathed in tears upon the thorny spray,
Seemed shrunk within themselves to mourn the absent day.

But scenes like these have vanished long ago
And other objects entered in their room,
My mirthful heart, a magazine of woe
Hath now become. The beauty and the bloom
Of boyhood now lie buried in the tomb
Of Memory; and, yet, I am but young!
My task is now to tend the labouring loom,
And work the woof, yet needs must ply my tongue,
Impelled by heart and head, and sorrow is my song.