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.