Copy of a poem, dated 1805, by the Rev'd John Hodgson (1779-1845), then of Lanchester, later of Heworth, Durham. The poem was originally published in 1810. The following transcription was taken from the memoires of the Rev'd John Hodgson by Rev'd John Raine, page 32. (Hodgson Line)

TO THE AUTHOR'S MOTHER ON HIS BIRTHDAY Full six and twenty winters now have swoln With angry turbulence the stream that laves The meadows, where my boyish feet Their dark prints left in morning dew, Since I was born. O' my dear Mother, with what envious speed The years of mortal beings roll away! Like couriers through some beauteous vale We haste, and the receding view Escapes us fast. In memory's eye the finish'd moments seem, A mighty prospect, dappled o'er with gleams And gloom - with sorrow and with joy: A land diversified with wilds And flowery plains. Far back, in dim dimish'd form, appear The days of childhood, like a distant hill With ether blue; and nearer rise, A wild of barrenness, the idle years I spent at school. There is my entrance in the vale of life! Dark as a forest as a winter's night, All through whose boughs translucent stream Of love and bliss and hope and fear, Like moonlight flow. High on the foreground, in colossal size, Manhood, in strange variety, presents A picture over which the mind Hurries with pain, or gazing views With fond delight. Before me blackness palpable is spread, Through which conjecture travels but in vain: Another birthday I may see; Or, long ere that, be lifeless clay --- 'Tis mystery all' 0 could I wings across my shoulders bind With speed far swifter than the swiftest gale I'd rise impatient from the earth, Cleave the long wilderness of air, And come to you. While life shall flutter at my mother's heart Dear, very dear, the dawning light shall be Which first, on dewy-glistening wings, Material prayers for me uphore To Mercy's throne. Nor shall forgetfulness obscure the day When over my cheeks the emblematic drops of pureness tell, and holy hands Upon my infant temples made The Christian sign. For when I lose remembrance of her love, Who watched with anxious hope my rising years, Farewell to all the bliss of life! Farewell my God, and farewell all That's worth a thought. Notes:- John Hodgson wrote this delightful poem to his mother Elizabeth (Betty) when he was 27. Betty was the daughter of William and Isabel Rawes of Wetsleddale, Yeoman. She was baptised at Shap in 1755 and died at Rosgill September 1809. She spent her early years in the valley of Wetsleddale, firstly at Sleddale Hall, later at Green Farm, Wetsleddale in the parish of Shap, Westmorland. Betty married Isaac Hodgson, Stonemason, in 1779. Betty and Isaac lived all their lives at Rosgill in Shap parish, where they raised eight children including John. John probably commenced his education at the little school in Swindale of which his uncle Robert Rawes was one of the trustees. John settled in county Durham where he became a teacher, vicar and antiquarian. He wrote a history of Northumberland and was the first to recognise Hadrian as the Emperor who ordered the building of the Wall. Copied by Julian Rawes of Cheltenham, 2003.