,
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:
"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
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,
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 thanksgiving
Mingled 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 blithsomely
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 homelike 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!

THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC.

BY THOMAS CAMPBELL.

Of Nelson and the North,
Sing th