Dorothy Una Ratcliffe

“ Where rabbits scamper thro' grasses lush,
And a pheasant's screech breaks the noon-day hush,
I journeyed on, till the sun began
His westering course.
"Evoë, great Pan!
Never a note of your pipings to-day
Has guided my steps thro' the sylvan way.
O! where must I seek in this Paradise?"
"Evoë, Evoë," a linnet sighs,
"Seek where the sisterly marshes are,
Where the marigold twinkles, a golden star,
Where willow and alder hide the river,
Where timid reed-warblers tremble and shiver." ”

“ The hill and the wood and the rippling rill
The air with different melodies fill;
Where bonnibel April latest was sent,
When May filled the world with her wonderment!
Who teaches the cuckoo his twin-bell call?
The opening notes of a festival
To jubilate the reign of the summer
Beauteous, queenliest, rosy-robed comer.
O Pan! I bring
A mortal whose soul is afire to sing."
Pan smiled—a smile like a twisted oak—
Then beckoned to me, while the forest spoke,
"Evoë, great Pan," sang the lark on high,
"Evoë, great Pan," from the uttermost sky ”

“ At the purling rill,
Thy laugh has sped
O'er the hillside grey:
Queen Mab! Queen Mab!
Listen my lay!
The cuckoo calls wistfully from down-dale, but QUEEN MAB does not hear him.
QUEEN MAB (stretching her small white arms and yawning dreamily) :
Methinks the air feels warmer, and the sky
Seems bluer, yet mine eyes are loath to ope.
I will not wake at once:
How the birds sing!
I did not think the world held so much song.
That note's a blackbird's; that's a finch's call;
A wren has whispered secrets to his mate ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 each at their 'pointed times I yearn.
Virginal snowdrop,
Firstling of Spring!
Crocus, herald of purple and gold,
Wistful windflowers,
Celandined stars,
Every one to my heart I fold.
Snow-soft blackthorn,
You wild, fair sweet,
The scent of you brings
A flutter of wings;
And, almond blossom,
You stole at dawn
The pale dream vest
Of the infant morn.
Of a pool of blue I dream—
Hyacinths, waving in ripples of blue.
There is nothing so fair the whole world thro'
As when quivering sun and quivering wind
Jocundly, joyously, leapingly find
A young green wood in a lazuli dream. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As wave after wave swept bravely by.
From flowers of blue to the Endless Blue
Hundreds of souls are passing thro',
And the poppies weep o'er the red-spilled lives:
O! at home are the mothers, the waiting wives. ”

“ Called to each other across the fells.
While music played on a reeded flute
Stilled the air, and the birds were mute.
"O leaf-loving Zephyr, whence cometh the mirth
Of this melody? Owns my mothering Earth
A piper who pipes so alluringly
Of beauty that is, of beauty to be? ”

“ 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 ”