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    The Dales of Arcady
    The Dales of Arcady
    The Dales of Arcady
    Ebook99 pages42 minutes

    The Dales of Arcady

    By Dorothy Una Ratcliffe

    ()

    Read preview
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateNov 27, 2013
    The Dales of Arcady

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      Book preview

      The Dales of Arcady - Dorothy Una Ratcliffe

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Dales of Arcady, by Dorothy Una Ratcliffe

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with

      almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or

      re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included

      with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: The Dales of Arcady

      Author: Dorothy Una Ratcliffe

      Release Date: August 14, 2011 [EBook #37086]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DALES OF ARCADY ***

      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 æons, 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 hurriedly, causing the whirlpool so dreaded by Grecian sailors.

      But the youngest Goddess had waited long and was becoming mutinous.

      Her great grey eyes, like silent moorland tarns fringed with shadowy larches, were fixed on the handiwork of the Goddess who at that moment held the Ball.

      She noticed the blue line thoughtfully traced across a vast tract of land, the line men call the River Amazon, and she watched the Designer proudly hold the Ball aloft to show her handiwork to her sisters.

      Surely it is the finest river we have yet traced!

      Nay! let me see it.

      Can it be greater than that which Mortals call the Ganges?

      Then, as the Designer of the Amazon threw the Ball above the head of the youngest Goddess toward the lap of a weary, responsible-looking sister, the youngest Goddess leapt above the little silvern stars, and caught it in her lithe white arms.

      A look of consternation went round the Universe.

      She is too young to play!

      But the youngest Goddess claspt the Ball to her breast.

      Let me play, just once, she pleaded. I will make no earthquakes, no volcanoes, no geysers, nothing that could spoil the beauty of the Ball.

      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.

      "Here, I may play! Oh! my sisters, I

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