Yorkshire

Words and music by Alfred Cecil Calvert^[1].

The following song, sung at the Annual Dinner on 20th Feb., 1909, seems to merit a wider audience:-

Forty in round numbers are
England’s counties great and small
And of these shall ever stand
Yorkshire, greatest of them all ;
Shouldering the stalwart North,
Buttress staunch and true is she ;
Is there county can compare
With her of the Ridings three ?

Chorus:-

Here’s a health, then, lads of the Ridings three,
To the broad acred shire in the North Countree ;
Here’s a health to bonnie Yorkshire and all that she enfolds,
From the Humber to the Tees, from the Pennines to the Wolds.
Here’s a health, here’s a health to Yorkshire !

From her battlemented cliffs
Facing eastward to the sea,
To her high fells in the west
Guarding moorlands in their lee,
Nature’s graces lie revealed
In profusion wide and free;
Gifts of God to win and charm
All she holds in simple fee.

Chorus – Here’s a health, then, lads, &c.

Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane,
All have known her magic spell,
Loved her, spread her fame abroad,
Made the history we tell :
On her honoured roll of fame
We may read who loved her well –
Saint and soldier, prince and peer,
And the lads of dale and fell.

Chorus – Here’s a health, then, lads, &c. 

And as time doth roll along,
Shall her sons unworthy prove
Of the high inheritance
Long descended of her love ?
Never whilst the waves recoil,
Beaten from her rugged coast,
Never whilst her hills do stand
Shall she cease to be our boast.

Chorus – Here’s a health, then, lads, &c.