As I sit listening to the eternal sound of the sea I can hear another song in the air over the fields nearby. It has been the music of the open English countryside since the Neolithic age. Set between these two timeless sounds my spirit rises to the skies with the flight of the skylarks.

The Sound of the Sea

 On ear and ear two noises too old to end
Frequenting there while moon shall wear and wend. 
Trench—right, the tide that ramps against the shore;
With a flood or a fall, low lull-off or all roar,

From The Sea and the Skylark by G.M.Hopkins

This is a rare undeveloped place on our south coast, where the farmland meets the sea. A favourite place to park and sit in stillness to listen to the timeless music of the sea.      

Today the sea’s mood is still and calm. The morning sunlight shimmers on the sea as clouds float dreamily offshore.

 Debussy’s La Mer seems to play in the air here. Its symphonic poem evocatively presenting the sea in all its various moods. He finished work on this piece while staying at Eastbourne just along the coast from here.

The Lark Ascending

But look the other way and you will hear another sound, skylarks singing over these coastal fields where they nest.

I hear the lark ascend,
His rash-fresh re-winded new-skeinèd score
In crisps of curl off wild winch whirl, and pour
And pelt music, till none’s to spill nor spend

The Sea and the Skylark

Like Gerard Manley Hopkins and Richard Jefferies I sit and listen captivated, my spirit uplifted skywards.

the air is full of larks that sing without ceasing….listening to them it seems for a moment spring. There is sunshine in the song; the lark and the light are one. He gives us a few minutes of summer in February days. —let the heart come out from the shadow of roofs to the open glow of the sky. High above, the songs of the larks fall as rain—receive it with open hands.

From Out of Doors in February by Richard Jefferies. (In his day there were skylarks in every field.)

Though skylarks are in serious decline nationally, there are many still singing on the downs here in Sussex. Another good place to hear them is on our local Highdown Hill just a mile or two inland from the coast. Like much of our South Downs this is wonderful skylark country.

Habitat Restoration

But G.M.Hopkins’ poem ends with regret when he compares the timeless beauty of nature with the shallowness and fragility of human life. In recent decades we have destroyed much of our traditional skylark nesting habitats. We have overgrazed and over-mown our grassland and ploughed up our meadows. Now we are drowning out the song of the remaining skylarks with the roar of ever increasing traffic.

While its low nest, moist with the dews of morn,
Lies safely, with the leveret, in the corn.

John Clare’s The Skylark

Sadly our fields are no longer safe for skylarks. Instead of hay for winter food for the cattle we repeatedly mow the fields in the early summer skylark nesting season for silage, destroying any nests with eggs or young. Happily many farmers are now trying to farm in a more environmentally sensitive way with such measures as hay making, skylark plots and wide uncut grassy field margins left as nesting sites.

Hopefully I will be able to keep coming back to this place by the sea with ears open for the inspiring sound of the sea and song of the skylarks.