THE
DALES OF ARCADY
BY
DOROTHY UNA RATCLIFFE
ERSKINE MACDONALD, LTD.
LONDON, W.C.1
All Rights Reserved
First published November 1918
DEDICATED TO
THE FIRST YORKSHIREMAN I SET EYES ON
DADDY
CONTENTS
[Prologue]
[Daleshire]
[On Otley Chevin]
[The Song of Nidderdale]
[Song of the Mists]
[Wander-Thirst]
[The Road]
[The Swaling of the Moor]
[The Moors in Summer]
[My Herbary]
[Rushes]
[Satan and I]
[To the Wind]
[Saadi and the Rose]
[The Difference]
[Song of the Primroses]
[Lilies]
[The Pear-Tree]
[Beggar's Gold]
[On Early Rising]
[Jewels]
[Bargaining]
[Song of Good-Bye]
[King Yesterday]
[Kissing]
[Philosophy]
[A Thrush's Song]
[A February Day]
[Laus Deo]
["Past-Ten-O'Clock-Land"]
[To Memory]
[A War Prayer for a Little Boy]
[Star-Scandal]
[The First of July]
["The Ideal Man"]
[To the Coming Spring]
[Question]
[The Dales of Arcady]
[A War-time Grace]
[Queen Mab's Awakening]
PROLOGUE
The youngest Goddess sat in a corner of the Universe and sulked.
For æons, she had watched the older Goddesses play each in turn with the Earth-Ball, and every time the Ball passed her way, someone said,
"She is too young, and, if she played with the Ball, might injure it."
Another added,
"Even our honourable Sister E—— created baleful Etna in her ardent desire to give a beauteous mountain to flowering Sicily, and C——, when she designed the azure Mediterranean, raised her little finger all too hurriedly, causing the whirlpool so dreaded by Grecian sailors."
But the youngest Goddess had waited long and was becoming mutinous.
Her great grey eyes, like silent moorland tarns fringed with shadowy larches, were fixed on the handiwork of the Goddess who at that moment held the Ball.
She noticed the blue line thoughtfully traced across a vast tract of land, the line men call the River Amazon, and she watched the Designer proudly hold the Ball aloft to show her handiwork to her sisters.
"Surely it is the finest river we have yet traced!"
"Nay! let me see it."
"Can it be greater than that which Mortals call the Ganges?"
Then, as the Designer of the Amazon threw the Ball above the head of the youngest Goddess toward the lap of a weary, responsible-looking sister, the youngest Goddess leapt above the little silvern stars, and caught it in her lithe white arms.
A look of consternation went round the Universe.
"She is too young to play!"
But the youngest Goddess claspt the Ball to her breast.
"Let me play, just once," she pleaded. "I will make no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no geysers, nothing that could spoil the beauty of the Ball."
Then an old Goddess—so old that she could remember God calling order out of chaos, hobbled towards her.
"Child! thou hast seized the Ball, and play with it thou wilt, but disturb not the handiwork of thine elder sisters. Thou canst pattern only where they have not worked."
So the youngest Goddess held the Ball up to the glance of God to get a great light upon it, and by chance found one small space covered with heather and bilberry, a wild sad waste.
"Here, I may play! Oh! my sisters, I would make something rarer and more beautiful of my little wild heath than any of you have dreamed of for other parts of the Ball."
Lovingly she laid her outstretched hand upon the bosom of the moorland, and when she lifted it the uplands bore the soft imprint, and a little river flowed where each finger had rested.
Thus were created
Airedale,
Wharfedale,
Nidderdale,
Wensleydale, and
Swaledale.
And because the fingers of the youngest Goddess quivered with pleasure they are merry little dancing rivers, and even play underground as they ripple to the Ouse.
In this wise she fulfilled her desire to make something rarer and more beautiful of her moorland waste than her sisters had ever dreamed of for any other part of the Ball.
But, being very young, she boasted of her wondrous achievement, and, as a punishment, the other Goddesses prevented her from ever playing with the Ball again.
That is the reason there is only one Daleshire.
DALESHIRE
To E. A. B.
When sad home-longings, like little waifs,
Come to my heart, in a stranger-land,
No thought of a house sweeps over me,
No pleasant thorp does my heart demand;
For the great blue open wold it cries,
For the road that over the moorland lies.
For heather lands where the plovers wing,
Where frail mists gather about the hills
Like mystic shapes that eerily cling,
Where the air is hushed for the snipe-loved rills:
All these my tired heart greets as "Home,"
When and wherever I'm forced to roam.
In the dales the pollarded willows flower:
I hear the wings of a mating thrush;
The river has gained its spated hour,
Its mad, magnificent, tumbling rush;
Ready to break their hearts or sing,
My own sweet dales are expecting spring.
No flower-girt cottage means home to me,
No stately, splendid ancestral pile,
No cosy house builded pleasantly
Does my wandering-weary heart beguile,
But the homesick heart of me longs to hail
My county of lovering moor and dale!
BEAMSLEY BEACON.
ON OTLEY CHEVIN
Over the rough-hewn limestone wall,
I watched the serpenting river crawl
Adown the dale, thro' dimpled fields,
Daisy-brimmed, where Almscliffe shields
With rocky crest
The lambs that play on the old Earth's breast.
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.
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.
The wild Ever-during is calling for me,
A missel's song and a curlew's cry,
Blent with a rivulet's minstrelsy,
And the crooning voice of the fir-top's sigh.
'Tis the great god Pan that I seek to find
Borne on the wings of my lover Wind.
"O! make me one with the wondrous earth,
God of the woods and the laughing rills!
Make me one with the lucent mirth
Of the Sun as he rides o'er the gorse-loved hills.
When I am gone and my singing is mute
Give to my Lover my silent lute."
ROSEBERRY TOPPING.
THE ROAD
Over the moor in the velvet dusk
Mysteriously it lies.
White thro' the heath and the swart fir woods
White 'neath the twilit skies.
'Tis hid in the folds of the purple hills,
Seeking a fern-fringed burn:
But it mounts again, then is lost once more,
With a tremulous, misting turn.
Where blue mists gather beneath the moon
It shows as a silvern stream.
O Path of Life, you are out of sight,
And lost in a wistful dream.
JUGGER HOWE DALE.
THE SWALING* OF THE MOOR
Oh! Moorland in September
To love and to remember.
The air is still and sunlit,
The moor's a russet bed,
The bracken's turning beryl,
The whortle leaves are red.
Here stand five sister pine-trees,
Gold-nimbussed by the sun;
And near, a slender rowan,
Its scarlet reign begun.
A runnel near is singing
A song of liquid glee,
A saucy, joyous blackbird
Tilts bubbling notes at me.
Then in a magic circle
Seven thick white smokes upcurl,
And forks of flame triumphant
Like crimson flags unfurl.
They rise with grace, and slowly—
Flower incense from the ling,
Repaying summer splendour
By an autumn offering.
Oh! Moorland in September
To love and to remember.
WEST END, BLUBBERHOUSES.
* The annual burning of the heather.
THE MOORS IN SUMMER
Up to the moorlands a lingtit has flown—
(Another meadow has yet to be mown
Before the sun goes under the hill).
I will hie me down, for a drink, to the rill:
A wheatear mimics the whinchat's call,
And a cuckoo cries from the Woods of Wath
As a heron soars over the verdant strath,
And an ousel pipes from the grey stone wall.
I drink in a dream—
The water flows from a Fairy Stream.
For the smell of the ling my heart is a-yearn,
And the sharp, sweet tang of a moorland burn.
The lingtit waited anent a gate
Where foxgloves held their midsummer fête,
Then on she sped o'er the feathery green
Of the bracken fronds, flying beneath and between,
Till she reached a dyke where the bents and moors
Stretched out to the sky in a rolling sea
Of wave upon wavelet of purpling glee,
O'er a land where the wistful lapwing lures.
I sought to rest
On the moorland's soft, sweet, heathery breast,
When out of the bilberries, spick and clean,
A small man stepped, in a coat of green.
He bowed to the earth, with an old-world grace,
Then lifted his eyes to my sun-tanned face:
"So you are the Mortal who drank from our rill,
A cordial welcome to Bilberry Hill!"
He peered again, and he watched mine eyes,
Then turning, he whistled the lapwing's note.
For a moment the melody seemed to float
O'er the heather; and then with increased surprise
I saw a troop
Of little green men around me group.
They all bowed low, "I thought you had fled
The Yorkshire Uplands, green men!" I said.
They smiled at each other. Their leader broke
The hush of the heather, and thus he spoke:
"Ling-men! her eyes are the eyes of the fells,
Grey as the clouds and blue as the bells
Of the harebell. See! how they flash and play
As the rivulet does 'neath the rowan and birk;
'Tis a glance in which there's loving a-lurk;
A glance that only is born on the brae.
Ling-men! I am sure
A changeling is she, and belongs to the moor.
Her way she lost as a weeny bairn.
Men found her, and town-ways they made her learn.
Capture her heart so she cannot roam
Far away from her grouse-loved home,
Weave from the cottony grasses a chain
That will pull at her heart with a wild, dear pain;
Fashion a gyve from the wings of the lark,
Manacles make from the bumble-bees' croon,
To keep her a captive from June to June,
To render her ours in the light, in the dark!"
They wove a spell
Which encircled me round from fell to fell.
O! it bound my heart for ever and aye,
To the lands where the Bilberry Ling-men play.
DALLOWGILL MOOR.
MY HERBARY
I know a little garden very old,
High-walled, with wandering paths of greenest box;
Beyond the doorway lies the rolling wold,
The open moorland, and the Brimham Rocks.
Here find a home all nigh-forgotten herbs;
The sage and rosemary nod side by side;
A giant lavender no pruning curbs,
With us each year the honesties abide.
Under a hawthorn, ruby-gemmed in May,
A bank of marjorams lie at their ease;
Here, lad's-love sigh their fragrant hearts away,
Whilst rippling lieds of water never cease.
Beside the cherry-tree the balsams flower,
The rue and mint bloom out a life-time meek;
A pleasant place it is at sunrise hour,
When sportful finches wing in hide-and-seek.
And where the aged, moss-grown sundial lies,
The peacock pert unfolds his wheel-rim tail,
Showing a hundred jewelled Argus eyes:
With harsh, shrill cry he bids the day "All hail."
More is he fitted for the fountained sward
Than for my herbary of butterflies;
No! I proclaim the lovelier throstle, Lord,
The only one my simples recognise.
PATELEY BRIDGE, NIDDERDALE.
RUSHES
Rushes by the river
Rear their heads of brown;
In the wind they quiver
With a warning frown.
"Do you want them, Fairest?
At thy feet they lie;
They were guarding, Rarest,—
Sentinels!—They die."
Wild things are not willing
To be captive ta'en:
"Cutting's almost killing,"
Is their sad refrain.
"Rushes in their beauty
Greenly-proud should stand:
Guarding is their duty—
River from the land."
DARLEY, NIDDERDALE.
SATAN* AND I
To-day there is no one as happy as I,
Who am free of the hills, of the dales, of the sky,
As I ride o'er the moors while the lapwings cry.
I ride thro' the whin, watch the rabbits run,
Then slowly I turn to bask in the sun—
Then gallop away o'er the crest, like fun.
And Satan, you fiend, with your knowing ways
And tricks, that you dream of for days and days,
And mem'ries of maddening hours of the chase;
Do you feel the liberty of the wind,
That wakes the fern-land with kisses kind,
And seeks with caresses our lips to find?
To-day, for us both to be out is joy,
Tho' I am a girl with the soul of a boy,
And you are a horse, whom the spurs annoy.
To just be alive is a blessing rare,
In a world of beauty, endlessly fair;
For Satan and I, we have no care.
ALMSCLIFFE CRAG, WHARFEDALE.
* The name of my horse.
TO THE WIND
Strong, powerful Sweetheart-Wind,
In tireless love-storm surging;
Great, bold, tempestuous Wind,
Ever thy passion urging.
Hold me close in thine arms,
O! strengthening ecstasy:
Wild, sweet, capturing arms—
Love! I am yearning for thee.
Eyes, hair, bosom caress,
My rowan-red lips now kiss;
Life-giving, wilful caress,
O! marvellous moorland bliss.
Great, strong lover o' mine,
I long for thy grand embrace;
Fierce, brave lover o' mine,
I yield to thee my heart's grace.
GREENHOW HILL.
SAADI AND THE ROSE
O summer, with thy magic gift of flowers
And soft bird voices, musicking the breeze,
While yet thy roses stir the lazy air
My soul wings back thro' centuries, as hours.
It journeys till it 'lights within a court
Where roses riot o'er veined-marble walls,
Where peacocks strut along the broad white steps,
Or over broideries by fair hands wrought.
Within the palace, divanned, rests a king,
Who watches listlessly the fountain's jet;
And at his feet the poet Saadi stands
And hears intent th' captured bulbuls sing.
A slave with soul on freedom bent he stands,
His eyes ablaze with restless ecstasy,
While all around him breathes magnificence
Of power imperial over many lands.
Within his slender hand he holds a rose;
Raising his head, he murmurs, "Mighty King!
Do good unto thy servant while thou canst:
Thou may'st not always mitigate his woes.
"Like to this fleeting glory, carmined deep,
The season of thy power is transient:
Do good, whilst yet thou canst—'before thine eyes
Close in thy last, forgetting, silent sleep."
O blood-red rose! Thy petals bring to me
The sunlit beauty of the Persian Court,
The voice of Saadi, pleading with the king
His freedom granted on thy crimson plea.
A ROSE-GARDEN IN AIREDALE.
THE DIFFERENCE
When the factories all are silenced,
And night brings her balm of sleep,
What are your last dear waking thoughts
Ere you drift into slumber deep?
Why, Darling Mine! they are all of work,
As your mind reviews the day:
Of the men you meet, of progress made,
Of struggles to make your way.
But I—when I nestle among the sheets,
Ere sleep my tired eyes woo,
Just count and repeat the loving words
That have fall'n to-day from you!
AIREDALE.
SONG OF THE PRIMROSES
Listen to the infant breeze,
Clutching at the nippled trees,
Where our yellow flowers are blowing,
Where the rivulet is flowing.
Over all the blue-cupped sky
Silver brooding clouds swim by;
See! The firstling swallow flying,
Later, owlets will be crying.
Come and mark the painter sun
Daub the earth with golden fun;
Hear the larches' fingers snapping,
As if goblin hands were clapping.
Smell the rain-sweet, thymy earth,
Feel the wonder of rebirth!
Far away a cuckoo's calling,
Notes that sound like twin bells falling.
Then a clearer voice replies
To his echo ere it dies,
And the blackbirds' voices mingle
With th' Eistedfodd in the dingle.
Gold-green poplars slowly wave
O'er the Winter's mossy grave;
Ferns are pointing curly fingers
Where the dead year's bracken lingers.
We have seen a hedgehog hide
Prickle-less to greet his bride;
Watched the baby otter shiver
Ere he plunged into the river.
We are critics of the bees,
Watch how they despoil and seize
From each cowslip saffron bounty;
Uncaught robbers of the county!
All the keenings of the bat,
Whimperings of the water-rat;
All the hopes of sister flowers
Come to us by gossip showers.
Tortoise-shelled butterflies,
On their dew-pearl'd wingful sighs,
Bear the news of elfin squabbles;
"Wounded Oberon still hobbles."
We are darlings of the Spring,
All her secrets she doth bring,
Runes of magic she discloses
To her confidant-Primroses.
ENVOI
We shall feel her joy-winged sigh,
When she hears the Summer's cry:
We shall droop and die of grieving,
When our lovely Spring is leaving.
LITTONDALE.
LILIES
When I am old, so very old
That all my own have passed away,
And I await Life's evening-gold,
A little figure, lone and grey;
I'll keep a garden, green and bright,
Then I'll forget approaching night.
A garden dear—with quaint-cut yews—
Bound by a hedge of bronzing beech,
And just before them I shall choose
The great white lilies that beseech,
With upturned faces, pure and staid,
Love from the little Mother Maid.
And close beside the lichened wall,
Lilies, aflame like scarlet fire,
Shall watch the little swallows fall
From out their nestlet in the byre;
And where the path strays to the stream,
The golden ones shall dying dream.
Then where the garden greets the wood,
A host of lily-bells shall ring
Their message clear that "all is good
Where God reigns over everything."
My garden-beauty, all shall see,
Is mirrored from Eternity.
A GARDEN IN AIREDALE.
THE PEAR-TREE
A rain of petals the pear-trees give,
As a pearly toll for the right to live.
Fragile petals that gently fall,
Like tears down the face of the old grey wall.
Around the bole, where the grasses grow,
Is a circle white as of melting snow.
An enchanted circle, flower-entwined,
Where hyacinth fingers the grasses bind.
The youngling thrushes soon learn how
To alight and shake the flowers from each bough.
The swallows tell their babes such tales!
That the tree is a ship with flower-white sails,
Anchored to Earth in the harbour of May;
But one moonless night she will sail away,
And a prim green tree will take the place
Of the phantom ship with its sails of lace.
Then in autumn the Orchardist Time will come,
And bear the fruit away to his home.
And later on he will heave a sigh,
That the little white tree some day must die.
So I write this verse to the little Pear-tree,
That both be remembered—it and me.
COXWOLD.
BEGGAR'S GOLD
I
Around me sounded effort manifold,
As creaking cranes swung ponderously slow,
At intervals I heard the hiss of steam,
The rhythmic beating of an iron's blow:
I thought,—this energy will sometime be
Transmuted into that which all men crave,
The magic metal, Gold, great Titan Gold,
Whom men make monarch when he should be slave.
And as I mused, above the jarring clang,
I heard a faint sweet sound of flutterings,
A tender movement, musical and low,
As of a fledgeling trying its young wings.
A gentle zephyr blew the casement wide,
A woman glided past the tapestry,
With russet golden hair, all gowned in gold.
She looked about her hesitatingly;
I heard her voice as if thro' beechen boughs,
Caressive as a moor-born singing burn,
And thro' it ran the lisping of the pines,
The lovely lilt of some gold-dying fern.
II
(She sang):
"Ye seek the gold of the city;
Ye cheat, ye brag, ye lie;
In quest of its sordid yellow
Ye hunger until ye die.
I offer ye gold for the having:
The mint of October's glow,
To warm your souls with its wonder,
Your souls, in their greed-bound snow.
Gold of the hedges I offer,
Marvellous gold of the ghyll,
Rowan-red gold from the forest,
Take from me, ye who will.
Gold ye need for your bodies,
O men of the smoke-chained town.
But know, that my gold's for the asking,
Gold for a Beggar's Crown."
III
She silently sped
As a star at morn
In the saffron track,
Of the day, dew-born,
Leaving a longing
Intensely strong
To own for myself
The gold of the song.
The city I'll leave
With footstep bold,
To seek for myself
The Beggar's Gold.
IV
I woke and found a leaf upon the floor,
And two more golden leaves outside the door.
AIREDALE.
ON EARLY RISING
THE LOVER:
Why not rise with dawn, my Lady?
Why miss these sweet hours?
Come with me: the ghyll is shady,
Carpeted with flowers;
Why miss these sweet hours?
Now thou liest a-bed, my jewel,
How canst thou still sleep?
To encase thyself is cruel—
Beauty thus to keep.
How canst thou still sleep?
HIS LADY:
At this hour, my simple lover,
I prefer to rest
Than to watch the tireless plover
Rise from dewy nest;
I prefer to rest.
Beauty such as mine, my lover,
(This I know is right)
Even thou wilt soon discover
Is more meet for night
(This I know is right).
THE SONG-MAKER:
In the daytime chirp the thrushes;
But the nightingale
Waits until the moonlit hushes
To pour forth her tale;
Wiser nightingale!
JEWELS
O! Gold I lack; I am a man
Who cannot give as others can;
No costly gems of value rare
Are mine to give, my Lady Fair!
Yet would I give, and of my best,
So delve the kingdom of mine eyes:
What say'st thou to a rope of pearls
Strung from the cirro-clouded skies?
A sunlit beck, just after rain,
Should from its ripples lend a chain
Of sparkling diamonds, very meet
To grace thy wrist, my Lady Sweet.
A peaty tarn, lost 'mong the hills,
Of beryl tint should make a ring;
The moors should yield a coronet
Of amethyst, from summer ling.
*****
Rubies? Already thou hast two!
They are the gems for which I sue.
RIBBLESDALE.
BARGAINING
There are many, many forests lying north, south, east, and west,
There are many, many rivers moving slowly to the sea,
But there's a wood of budding beech that claims the heart of me,
And there's a little singing beck that falls from heathered crest.
O! I would give the universe to own that singing stream,
And watch the stars a-hiding from the rosy-fingered morn,
While cuckoos wake the fellside, and daffodils are born—
O! any one can have the world, so I may keep my stream—
Yet would I barter beechen wood and little singing beck
If I could fold my arms once more around my sweetheart's neck.
NIDDERDALE.
SONG OF GOOD-BYE
The ship is speeding fast from out the bay,
Instead of thine, I feel a kiss of spray;
My face is lashed by salt winds from the sea,
My eyes are wet with parting now from thee.
O Husband Sweetheart! send to me a thought—
Some loving word, perchance my lips have taught!
The evening fades to purple, darkly blue,
The air is chill, a few white stars creep through
The steely buckler of the northern sky;
One lonely sound recurs—a sew-mew's cry.
O Husband Sweetheart! send thy heart to me
Across this tireless, surging, tossing sea!
To-night we're severed, many miles apart:
I wonder, canst thou rest, my Dearest Heart?
In Court of Dreams perhaps we'll briefly meet
And kiss upon the Borderland of Sleep.
O Husband Sweetheart! say for me a prayer—
God give you peace, and have you in His care!
OFF THE YORKSHIRE COAST.
KING YESTERDAY
You and King Yesterday both have fled
To the Land-of-the-beautiful-days-that-are-dead.
How full of bird music the dewy-fair Morn
When Yesterday, King of the Past, was born;
How rosy with roses the passionate noon
When you and King Yesterday ruled sweet June;
How royal with splendour the crimsoning west
As Yesterday bravely grew old with zest;
And eve was a glamour of emerald light
When Yesterday greeted the world "Good-night."
Oh! You and King Yesterday gently wean
My thoughts to the Country-it-might-have-been.
KISSING
Thou canst not kiss without consent,
For know, dear Thief, a kiss is lent;
And if thou takest one to-day,
With interest must thou repay:
One now, next week I'll count in fives,—
Thou'lt owe some scores in Paradise!
TANFIELD, WENSLEYDALE.
PHILOSOPHY
Some tell me "Life is a weariful thing,
That Sorrow remains, while joy takes wing."
But Sorrow and I already have met:
His face is wan and his lips are set;
He cometh and goeth on silent feet,
Yet between his visits are moments sweet,
Moments that come like a blackbird's dart,
When Happiness holds me close to his heart;
When I sense the rapture of swinging skies
And know the thrill of the spring's surprise,
As I lie on the mothering Earth's deep breast
And clasp my tremulous bosom, lest
Some unknown loveliness I might miss,
Or forgetful be of the West Wind's kiss.
Like the blackbird's notes in the early hours
Which fall like a peal of silver flowers,
Joy rings his bells in my waiting ears,
And Sorrow departs to his silent meres.
"And if he returns?"—my soul will sing
Remembering Joy who has taken wing!
RILSTONE FELL.
A THRUSH'S SONG
(To My First Love, Daddy)
A thrush's call
Has chanced to fall
Into my heart
Where dwell apart
Dear memories
Of summer skies,
Of heartsome days,
Of flower-fair ways,
Of kisses shy
With people high.
What did I ken
Of lovers then,
Of lover-laws,
Of lover-saws?
The sweet, sweet earth
Was giving birth
To lovely things
With songs and wings;
And yonder thrush
On yonder bush
Brings home to me
The little years of memory.
A FEBRUARY DAY
(There is a country saying that spring has not come until you can set your foot on seven daisies at once)
"O! How do you know
When spring has come?
Still falls the snow
And the birds are dumb."
The grass will wear
A greener tone,
The thrush will dare
To carol alone.
The silver rain
Will warmly fall,
The woods will gain
The blackbird's call.
But the way to tell,
And the only way,
Is to find a dell
Where the breezes play,
And seek and seek
Where the daisy-bloom
Shows white and meek
Like a baby moon.
And when your foot treads
With tender fear
On seven white heads,—
Then spring is here.
COXWOLD.
LAUS DEO
(For My Little God-son)
God Darling! Listen to my song,
The one I sing the whole day long,
Of thanks to Thee for every good,
Whether at home, in field, or wood.
I thank Thee for the lovely spring,
And for Thy little birds that sing;
I thank Thee for the summer's sun,
When 'mong the roses I can run.
I thank Thee for the sickle time,
When corn is ripe, and apples prime.
I thank Thee for the deep white snow,
When I tobogganing can go.
I thank Thee for the bright sweet day,
For hours of love and work and play;
I thank Thee for the deep blue night
When I and flower-buds fold up tight.
NIDDERDALE.
"PAST-TEN-O'CLOCK-LAND"
"It was Moonlight Land and Past-ten-o'clock Land and we were in it and of it."—KENNETH GRAHAM.
There's a lovely land that is all your own,
If your years but number ten,
Where the cherryblossom's ever in flower,
And found in "Past-ten-o'clock Glen."
There's a river with musical water-falls,
You paddle as long as you please,
And the daisies don't die as you pick them,
When found on "Past-ten-o'clock Leas."
And the rivulet leads to a harbour,
Full of the quaintest of ships,
One wish will transport you to China,
Or other "Past-ten-o'clock Trips."
Away in dim mountains of amber,
Which drop sheer down to the waves,
Fierce brigands, be-weaponed and ear-ringed,
Live in "Past-ten-o'clock Caves."
O! the folk understand you and love you,
You never can do any wrong—
You can shoot the cat with a catapult,
Or shout the "Past-ten-o'clock Song."
You can play you are really an otter,
And get as wet as you like;
You can lie in wait as a Redskin does,
In a deep "Past-ten-o'clock Dyke."
It's a lovely land that is all your own,
If you're only ten years old,
But when you are more, you are apt to forget
"Past-Ten-o'clock-Dreams of Gold!"
BARDEN FELL, WHARFEDALE.
TO MEMORY
Mem'ry, sweet witch! you brought him to my door.
I heard you knock, and saw your fingers ope
The rosy gateway of a lingering hope,
And I beheld his dear face as of yore.
You held him by the hand I oft caressed,
And seemed so small a sprite by his tall side,
As in his leathern coat you tried to hide,
The same old coat my cheek so often pressed.
Then searchingly his deep blue eyes found mine,
As if to plead against forgetfulness,
With all the old-time loving kindliness:
And then you led him back without one sign.
Sweet little Mem'ry, lead him back once more,
And, knocking, bring him in, and close the door.
A WAR PRAYER FOR A LITTLE BOY
Morning
The day is just beginning,
But all the long night through,
The sailor-men were watching
Out in the dark night blue.
Dear God! when my turn comes,
May my watch be as true.
Evening
The long, still night is coming,
But whilst I've been at play,
The soldier-men were fighting
Thro' all the live-long day.
Dear God! when my turn comes,
Please keep me brave as they.
ROBIN HOOD'S BAY.
STAR-SCANDAL
One summer eve, my own dear love and I
Sat arm-entwined beneath a rowan-tree.
A little wind flew past us with a sigh,
And all the velvet leaves waved merrily.
Then, as mine eyes escaped his ardent glance,
I saw a star peep o'er the purple hill
And climb up to the topmost branch and dance,
And wink at its reflection in the rill.
"Come, kiss me once, O timorous-hearted Love.
Full many thousand kisses dost thou owe.
Prithee but one, thy pretty love to prove;
No one in all the world shall ever know."
No one? That spying star but told a poet,
And in a song he let the whole world know it.
THE FIRST OF JULY 1916
For the Mothers, Wives, and Sweethearts
of the 15th West Yorks ("Leeds Pals")
I
'Tis passing wonderful that they,
The little boys of yesterday,
Should suddenly become such men
That England rings with praise of them.
But tho' their names are writ in blood
—Deepening crimson flood on flood—
Their impositions writ awry
And copybooks are hardly dry;
And Sweetheart Life had scarcely kissed
The boy to man, when the blue mist
Of twilight lifted; and the dawn
Announced that rosy day was born.
As pink-curled clouds lit up the sky
A little gentle breeze whisked by
Caressing all the poppy-heads—
Rippling fields of budding reds—
Splashes of yellow sunned the earth
Where mustard meadows flowered mirth;
And cornflowers blue ran out to meet
The blue around God's Mercy-seat.
O! all the world and all the sky
Made it a sacrifice to die.
II
'Tis passing wonderful that they,
The little boys of yesterday,
Who cuddled to dear Mother-hearts
With darling rosy-fingered arts,
Did cheer with strong expectancy
The shattering artillery;
And smilingly went o'er the top
Unflinchingly without a stop
Into the poppied "No Man's Land."
Wave after wave, band after band,
Through the terror of bursting shells,
Through the noise of a thousand hells,
Through th' unmanning groans of pain,
Through the blood of the splendid slain
Lying under a blue-cupped sky,
As wave after wave swept bravely by.
From flowers of blue to the Endless Blue
Hundreds of souls are passing thro',
And the poppies weep o'er the red-spilled lives:
O! at home are the mothers, the waiting wives.
III
'Tis passing wonderful that they,
The little boys of yesterday
Who played with us, who teased us too,
Should such tremendous actions do.
No praise, no honour is too high
For those who gave so cheerfully:
Gave up the wonder of the spring,
Gave up the wealth that summers bring,
Gave up the gold of autumn's store,
Leaving us richer than before.
Unflinching bravery of soul!
Ring out your splendid deathless toll,
Ring down the years untiringly
In the hearts of the children-yet-to-be.
The carillon of your ideals
You'll hear again in their sweet peals;
God grant that we may squarely fight
For all you held to be upright.
LEEDS, July 1st, 1917.