



Produced by Al Haines










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 aeons, 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 <DW18>s, 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 fete,
  Then on she sped o'er the feathery green
  Of the bracken fronds, flying beneath and between,
  Till she reached a <DW18> 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