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sylvan and sacred. By the Rev. Richard Wilton

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HILDA'S WOOD,
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


141

HILDA'S WOOD,

HACKNESS, NEAR SCARBOROUGH.

In green Hackness, where holy Hilda prayed
And for her gracious Lord “did what she could,”
No stone of any building has withstood
The havoc which twelve centuries have made.
Her name has left the valleys where she strayed,
Low-lying fields, and streamlet's modest flood;
But, like the setting sun, has caught yon wood,
Which clothes the girdling heights in pleasant shade.
Long as the trees with emerald Spring shall bud,
Or burn with yellow Autumn, that fair hill
Shall brighten with the memory of the good;
Her presence vanished, but a glory still
Touches the grove and hallows all the place
Blest by the footsteps of a life of Grace.
 

Lady Hilda, the pious and illustrious founder of Whitby Abbey, retired to Hackness in the year 679, and erected a nunnery or cell in that remote valley. The building is quite gone, but its founder's memory lingers in the name given to a wooded hill close by, which is called “Hilda Wood.”