The lark ascending can help lift our gloomy spirits

Continuing his series of reflections on place and pathway, Will Gore finds birdsong can brighten even the dampest of days

As George Meredith had it, all should ‘hear and all should know that he is joy, awake, aglow’ (Getty)

Muddy? By God it was, right from the off.

The kind of mud that sucks in boots and traps small children, who then collapse into the brown, unmoving stream and wail. The kind of mud that makes you think of First World War trenches, and feel thankful.

Our party struggled on along the swampy path, hemmed in by hedgerows: soiled and saturated mittens were rung out; dry feet given up as a lost cause. With a stiffening wind and rain around, we wondered if we would reach our goal, Wolstonbury Hill, which was not far off; but maybe far enough for the youngest of us.

A mewling away to our left made me pause, scanning the sky for the buzzard which was surely its source. And yes, there it was, circling low and sneaking into the canopy not more than a couple of hundred yards away – preparing a nest, perhaps.

As we ourselves were enveloped by the wood, the ground to either side of the muddy track was carpeted with wild garlic, its abundant green a contrast to the brown of the earth and the trees. The path wound steeply up, becoming dryer as it went, before it emerged at the other side of copse quite abruptly, with open pasture lying ahead.

Wolstonbury Hill, with its Bronze Age enclosure, is a scheduled monument near Hurstpierpoint in the South Downs. As we approached from the east, brisk showers could be seen falling away to the north and west; blue sky dominated in the south. The peak appeared to split the weather, and sure enough, a rainbow soon appeared, at its end a pot of gold otherwise known as Burgess Hill.

The children descend Wolstonbury Hill (Will Gore)

A squall blew in as we stood at the hill’s summit, leaning into the wind, but it passed in an instant; and, as we began to descend – retracing our steps – we were briefly bathed in sunshine.

I found myself bringing up the rear, watching as my children and their cousins scurried down at varying speeds before me, each of them muddied to one degree or another, but all now cheerful.

And then, on the lower slope of that ancient hill, swept by skiddy gusts and kissed by a try-hard sun, came the song of a skylark. No wonder that more poems have been written about the lark’s tune than any other bird; it is a thing of rare beauty despite the species being still quite common. And to hear one after months of gloom, and amidst the present global anxiety, is more heartening still.

I stood, like a chump, craning my neck to spot it. Even in a clear sky, when it is singing nineteen to the dozen, the lark can remain elusive. But at last I had it, a speck against the blue, blasting its complex pattern of notes and trills from 100 yards up. If truth be known, he deserved a bigger audience, so that, as George Meredith had it, all should “hear and all should know that he is joy, awake, aglow”.

The others had gone on, out of sight, back into the wood. I hurried after them, uplifted, brushing dried mud off my jacket.

As coronavirus clouds fall across the world, the lark will sing on, ascending. We could do worse than listen for his tune, and draw comfort from it.