Above the dowly intake lands
The great wide moor is calling,
Of heathered bens and brackened glens,
Where peat-born rills are brawling.
O! land of ever-changing skies,
Where wild winds storm and wail,
There is nowhere a land more loved
Than bonnie Nidderdale.
NIDDERDALE.
SONG OF THE MISTS
When Twilight beckons from the ghyll
We follow, follow up the hill;
Garth, holt, and meadow we caress,
Enwreathing all with loveliness;
Small, silver, mauve-blue butterflies
Are born of our brief summer sighs;
Frail harebells in our arms we bring,
To curtsey to the reigning ling;
Bairnies who watch for us to rise
Steal azure from us for their eyes;
And poets find their Land of Dreams
Lost in the moonlight of our streams.
THE HOLE OF HORCUM, NEAR WHITBY.
WANDER-THIRST
There's a drop of Romany blood in me,
And days there are when it swirls and leaps
Like a river's race or a surging sea,
Stirring to life all my calmer deeps.
Then wandering, wandering must I go
And the great, wide, open places know.
For out in the world the woods are awake,
And I hear the voice of the calling Wind,
My wonderful wooer, my rough, sweet mate,
And follow I must! Perchance I'll find
His whip that drives the clouds o'er the fells,
And cracks in the corrie, like short, sharp bells.