



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 hurried