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.