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._"