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 fête, Then on she sped o'er the feathery green Of the bracken fronds, flying beneath and between, Till she reached a dyke 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.