Gently I felt God's hand in mine,
As the sun came forth with a strength benign:
"I have one request to make, dear God:
That when my body is 'neath the sod,
My spirit still
May over this country roam at will."
On the wings of the wind I heard Him sigh:
"Unheedingly many—so many—pass by,
Tho' the world is full of My fairest thought,
Of all that My servant Time hath wrought,
It is so rare
To hear that My work is surpassing fair."
"O! Grant my prayer, and let me stay
In this land where Thy little rivers stray,
For I love them, God, with a love so true,
Remembering they are a part of You.
O! Speak and bless!"
And the wind from the uplands echoed "Yes."
WHARFEDALE.
THE SONG OF NIDDERDALE
As I came past the Brimham Rocks
I heard the thrushes calling,
And saw the pleasant, winding Nidd
In peaty ripples falling.
Its banks were gay with witching flowers,
And all the folk did hail
Me back again so cheerily
To bonnie Nidderdale.
The blackbirds in the birchen holts
The live-long day were singing,
Where countless azure hyacinths
Their perfumed bells were ringing.
And Guisecliff stands in loneliness
Between the moor and vale,
Protecting with its rocky scaur
My bonnie Nidderdale.
And as I passed thro' Pateley Brigg,
A woman carolled blithely,
And up and down the cobbled streets
The bairnies skipped so lithely.
The sky was blue, and silken clouds,
Each like an elfin sail,
Swept o'er the waking larchen woods
Of bonnie Nidderdale.
Where grey-stone dykes, and greyer garths
Look down on Ramsgill village,
The thieving, gawmless, gay tomtits
The little gardens pillage.
Grey Middlesmoor is perched upon
The fellside azure pale,
A mist-girt, lonely sentinel
O'er bonnie Nidderdale.