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.