Thy beauties, Bingley! never have been sung
By stranger-bard, or native poet's tongue;
Then may my humble muse with thee prevail
To pardon my presumption if I fail
In this attempt thy beauties to rehearse
In rustic strains of my untutor'd verse.
Of all the learned youths whom thou hast sent
To distant seas, or some far continent,
Though these on thee have thought in other climes,
All have forgot to praise thee in their rhymes.
When on thy lovely vale I stand to gaze,
I feel thou need'st from me no meed of praise:
Thy hanging woods, thy fountains, and thy bowers,
Thy dashing floods, thy landscapes, and thy flowers,
Thy bold grey rocks, thy healthy purple fells,
Where silent solitude with beauty dwells ;
Thy homes where honest worth still finds a seat,
And love and virtue a serene retreat—
Such scenes as these should plume the poet's wing,
And swell his heart while he attempts to sing.
O may Religion, life's best hope and stay,
The maids of Bingley teach the better way!
Their minds instruct, their innocence protect,
Their manners soften and their paths direct;
May they be like the turtles of the wood,
That dip their bills in Aire's meandering flood;
Then, at the last, faith's sunshine on each breast,
Soar to the mansions of eternal rest!
Innate their principle of truth and love,
Pure as the plumage of the turtle dove,
Sweet as the flowers, when bending to the sun,
Are Bingley's diughters when they love but one.
We have the mountain breeze, the cold pure spring ;
The woods where ev'ry British bird doth sing;
Wild plants and flowers, wild birds, and scenes as wild,
Or soft as any or which nature smil'd,
Blooming and lonely, as the moon is fair,
And pure as ether are the nymphs of Aire.
The weeping bird, the great majestic oak,
Where dark greet ivy forms a winter's cloak ;
The purple heath, where dappled moorcocks crow ;
The sylvan vales, with limping hares below,
The brooding pheasant, beauty of the wood,
And spotted trouf that cleave the amber flood.
For finer walks, for more sequester'd bowers,
For cooler grottos, and for richer flowers,
For streams tha; wind more beautiful along,
For birds with louder chorus to their song,
For all that geri'rous Nature can bestow,
All Yorkshire scenes to Bingley-vale must bow.