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, 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,-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 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.
"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. "
Oh, they listened, looked, and waited Till their hopes became despair;And the sobs of low bewailing Filled the pauses of their prayer.
Then up spoke a Scottish maiden, With her ear unto the ground,"Dinna ye hear it?-Dinna ye hear it? The pipes of Havelock sound ! "Hushed the wounded man his groaning; Hushed the wife her little ones;Alone they heard the drum-roll 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.
Like the march of soundless music Through the vision of the seer,More of feeling than of hearing,
The Relief of Lucknow
Of the heart than of the ear. She knew the droning pibroch,She knew the Campbell"s call : "Hark! hear ye no" Macgregor"s?-The grandest o" them all! "
Oh, they listened, dumb and breathless, And they caught the sound at last;Faint and far beyond the Goomtee Rose and fell the piper"s blast! Then a burst of wild thanksgivingMingled woman"s voice and man"s : "God be praised !-the march of Havelock !
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.
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, 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 home-like strain; 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, 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.
John Greenleaf Whittier
Author.-John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892), the sweet American Quaker poet and sturdy abolitionist, was born in Massachusetts. His best known poems are Slaves of Martinique, Barclay of Ury, Barbara Frietchie, My Psalm, and this poem.
General.-What does the drone of the pipes suggest? What does the treble call to mind? Why was the sound the sweetest of all music at Lucknow? Find Lucknow on the map. Read from your school text-book of history the story of the Indian Mutiny. Why "tiger " and "serpent " in the third stanza? Who was Havelock? Who are the Sepoys? What is a seer? What has the Campbell"s call to do with the Macgregor"s? Trace the course of the Goomtee? What is the difference between a Moslem mosque and a Pagan shrine? Is there any difference between a glen and a glade? Pick out the most stirring lines in the poem. For what do "tartan " and "turban " stand? How does the poet try to imitate in words the distant pibroch, the pibroch in battle, the tune of a happy reunion?