| |
| PIPES of the misty moorlands, | |
| Voice of the glens and hills; | |
| The droning of the torrents, | |
| The treble of the rills! | |
| Not the braes of broom and heather, | 5 |
| Nor the mountains dark with rain, | |
| Nor maiden bower, nor border tower, | |
| Have heard your sweetest strain! | |
| |
| Dear to the Lowland reaper | |
| And plaided mountaineer,— | 10 |
| To the cottage and the castle | |
| The Scottish pipes are dear;— | |
| Sweet sounds the ancient pibroch | |
| O’er mountain, loch, and glade; | |
| But the sweetest of all music | 15 |
| The pipes at Lucknow played. | |
| |
| Day by day the Indian tiger | |
| Louder yelled, and nearer crept; | |
| Round and round the jungle-serpent | |
| Near and nearer circles swept. | 20 |
| “Pray for rescue, wives and mothers,— | |
| Pray to-day!” the soldier said; | |
| “To-morrow death ’s between us | |
| And the wrong and shame we dread.” | |
| |
| O, they listened, looked, and waited, | 25 |
| Till their hope became despair; | |
| And the sobs of low bewailing | |
| Filled the pauses of their prayer. | |
| Then up spake a Scottish maiden, | |
| With her ear unto the ground: | 30 |
| “Dinna ye hear it?—dinna ye hear it? | |
| The pipes o’ Havelock sound!” | |
| |
| Hushed the wounded man his groaning; | |
| Hushed the wife her little ones; | |
| Alone they heard the drum-roll | 35 |
| And the roar of Sepoy guns. | |
| But to sounds of home and childhood | |
| The Highland ear was true;— | |
| As her mother’s cradle-crooning | |
| The mountain pipes she knew. | 40 |
| |
| Like the march of soundless music | |
| Through the vision of the seer, | |
| More of feeling than of hearing, | |
| Of the heart than of the ear, | |
| She knew the droning pibroch, | 45 |
| She knew the Campbell’s call: | |
| “Hark! hear ye no’ MacGregor’s,— | |
| The grandest o’ them all!” | |
| |
| O, they listened, dumb and breathless, | |
| And they caught the sound at last; | 50 |
| Faint and far beyond the Goomtee | |
| Rose and fell the piper’s blast! | |
| Then a burst of wild thanksgiving | |
| Mingled woman’s voice and man’s; | |
| “God be praised!—the march of Havelock! | 55 |
| The piping of the clans!” | |
| |
| Louder, nearer, fierce as vengeance, | |
| Sharp and shrill as swords at strife, | |
| Came the wild MacGregor’s clan-call, | |
| Stinging all the air to life. | 60 |
| But when the far-off dust-cloud | |
| To plaided legions grew, | |
| Full tenderly and blithesomely | |
| The pipes of rescue blew! | |
| |
| Round the silver domes of Lucknow, | 65 |
| Moslem mosque and Pagan shrine, | |
| Breathed the air to Britons dearest, | |
| The air of Auld Lang Syne. | |
| O’er the cruel roll of war-drums | |
| Rose that sweet and homelike strain; | 70 |
| And the tartan clove the turban, | |
| As the Goomtee cleaves the plain. | |
| |
| Dear to the corn-land reaper | |
| And plaided mountaineer,— | |
| To the cottage and the castle | 75 |
| The piper’s song is dear. | |
| Sweet sounds the Gaelic pibroch | |
| O’er mountain, glen, and glade; | |
| But the sweetest of all music | |
| The pipes at Lucknow played! | 80 |
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