[It was early in the morning that I took my ramble. I had noticed but little until I arrived at the foot of the quaint old hamlet of Marley. My spirits began to be cheered, for lively gratitude glowed in my heart at the wild romantic scenery before me. Passing the old mansion house, I wended my way towards the huge crag called the “Altar Rock.” Wild and rugged as the scenery was, it furnished an agreeable entertainment to my mind, and with pleasure I pushed my way to the top of the gigantic rock, where I viewed the grandeur of the vale below. The blossom on the branches, the crooked Aire gliding along like sheets of polished crystal, made me poetic. I thought of Nicholson, the poet of this beautiful vale, and reclining on a green moss covered bank, I said these words.]
Poet Nicholson, old Ebor’s darling bard,
Accept from me at least one tributary line;
Yet how much more should be thy just reward,
Than any wild unpolished song of mine.
No monument in marble can I raise,
Or sculptured bust in honour of thy name;
But humbly try to celebrate thy praise,
And give thee that applause thou shouldst duly claim.
All hail, the songsters that awake the morn,
And soothe the soul with wild melodious strains;
All hail, the rocks that Bingley hills adorn,
Beneath whose shades wild nature’s grandeur reigns.
From off yon rock that rears its head so high,
And overlooks the crooked river Aire;
While musing nature’s works full meet thy eye,
The envied game, the lark and timid hare.
In Goitstock falls, and rugged Marley hills,
In Bingley’s grand and quiet sequester’d dale,
Each silvery stream, each dike or rippled rills,
I see thy haunt and read thy “Poacher’s Tale.”
So, Homer like, thy harp was wont to tune,
Thy native vale and glorious days of old,
Whose maidens fair in virtuous beauty shone,
Her sages and her heroes great and bold.
No flattering baseness could employ thy mind,
The free-born muse detests that servile part:
In simple lore thy self-taught lay I find
More grandeur far than all the gloss of art.
Though small regard be paid to worth so rare,
And humble worth unheeded pass along;
Ages to come will sing the “Vale of Aire,”
Her Nicholson and his historic song.
