On Your Chater            (tune Clementine)

 

On your Chater, of my Joseph

          When your’re skidding to and fro

Don’t you think your foolish Joseph

          Turning out in all this snow?

When the flakes are falling gently,

          With your nose a ruddy glow

Thomas I would like to ask you

          Why you ride in all this snow?

 

It is raining, oh my Joseph

          It is raining dismally,

Don’t you think you’re silly Joseph?

          Silly you, and silly me

Oh, its drizzling, Tommy darling

          Shall we blind it home to tea?

It were best that we should fly, dear

          Best for you, and best for me!

 

 

                        An October Run

 

I started in the morning when the dew was on the grass

And the eastern sky was tinted like a dome of burnished brass

A sweet October morning, when red and gold and brown

Was scattered o’er the countryside and on the rolling down

 

The road was still and quiet, and the world was quiet too,

The miles slid fast behind just as they are apt to do;

I came to quaint old Chester, a city fair to see,

And there I met my comrade who waited by the Dee.

 

We sped along to Hawarden, and Mold was soon behind

On mountain tracks we wandered – just to see what we could find

And climbed blunt Moel Famau, a hard but pleasant task

For give the fields and hills around – that is all we ask

 

The view there from the summit was spread o’er land and sea

From Snowden’s graceful peak it stretched – right to the silver Dee

Plinlimmon, Cader Idris, and Wrekin Shropshire way,

And far beneath – a patchwork quilt – the Vale of Clwyd lay

 

A fierce descent by the old Bwlch, down into Clwyd’s Vale

A lingering lane hard by the hills that hedge the this fertile dale

An uphill climb of beauty rare – who would not this proclaim

That Nant-y-Garth, exquisite, brief, is more than just a name?

 

The Crown Hotel, Llandegla way, a hospitable place –

A wash and lunch, a pleasant chat, then other paths to trace

Through that sweet glen, the Nant-y-Ffrith: Of all the ravines fair

In Cambria’s land there’s very few that can with this compare

 

 And so by rock and pleasant wood and Autumn-tinted moor

We reached the Park of Eaton Hall, a real beauty store;

And then by shady winding lanes again to Deva came –

Another place that one can say is more than ‘just a name’

 

A homeward ride at eventide, with sunset o’er the hills

With sky of deepening, darkening blue, all dressed in fleecy frills

And last the towns of Lancashire, then I can truly say,

Before we part: Once more friend Tom, we’ve had a glorious day.         1927