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.