Opening Meet of the Blencathra Foxhounds

Longing for the Northern Fells

I may walk in Southern ways
By the lovely river land
And watch the soft wind as it plays
With the corn on either hand

By honeysuckle, and wild rose lane
And flowery, fairy dells
But my heart goes out with a kind of pain
For a sight of the Northern Fells

I may live where the Western sky
Lifts over the open moor
And watch the great ships steaming by
Through the stately harbour door

But soft is the air of moor and sea
Breathing of slumber spells,
And wild, wild, wild is the heart of me
For the cold of the Northern Fells.

Oh to stand where the great hills close
Round the tarn at evening fall
While the brown, brown bracken grows to a rose
And the wildfowl wheel and call

And through the gloom and the glamouring
You can hear the light sheep bells,
Ah, never the South and the West for me
With my heart on the Northern Fells.

Anon.