Famous Bagpipes Poems by Famous Poets
These are examples of famous Bagpipes poems written by some of the greatest and most-well-known modern and classical poets. PoetrySoup is a great educational poetry resource of famous bagpipes poems. These examples illustrate what a famous bagpipes poem looks like and its form, scheme, or style (where appropriate).
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by
Carroll, Lewis
...ead by cooks:
Read, I say, not roasted -
Letterpress, when toasted,
Loses its good looks.
Little Birds are playing
Bagpipes on the shore,
Where the tourists snore:
"Thanks!" they cry. "'Tis thrilling!
Take, oh take this shilling!
Let us have no more!"
Little Birds are bathing
Crocodiles in cream,
Like a happy dream:
Like, but not so lasting -
Crocodiles, when fasting,
Are not all they seem!
Little Birds are choking
Baronets with bun,
Taught to fire a gun:
Taught, I...Read more of this...
by
Lowell, Amy
...len Emperor!
The General in charge of him draws back and watches. Snatches
of music --
snarling, sneering music of bagpipes. They say a Scotch
regiment
is besieging Saint-Denis. The Emperor wipes his face,
or is it his eyes.
His tired eyes which see nowhere the grace they long for. Josephine!
Somebody asks him a question, he does not answer, somebody else
does that.
There are voices, but one voice he does not hear, and yet he hears
it
all the time...Read more of this...
by
Trumbull, John
...known
By many a murmur, hum and groan,
That to his speech supplied the place
Of counterpart in thorough bass.
Thus bagpipes, while the tune they breathe,
Still drone and grumble underneath;
And thus the famed Demosthenes
Harangued the rumbling of the seas,
Held forth with elocution grave,
To audience loud of wind and wave;
And had a stiller congregation,
Than Tories are, to hear th' oration.
The uproar now grew high and louder,
As nearer thund'rings of a cloud are,
A...Read more of this...
by
Schwartz, Delmore
...he pears hang, yellowed and over-ripe, sodden brown in
erratic places, all bunched and dangling,
Like a small choir of bagpipes, silent and waiting. And I
rise now,
Go to the window and gaze at the fallen or falling country
-- And see! -- the fields are pencilled light brown
or are the dark brownness of the last autumn
-- So much has shrunken to straight brown lines, thin as
the
bare thin trees,
Save where the cornstalks, white bones of the lost forever dead,
Shrive...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...allied his men without dread.
The battle raged for five hours, but the Highlanders were gaining ground,
Until the bagpipes struck up their wild clarion sound,
Then the dusky warriors fled in amazement profound,
Because their comrades were falling on every side around.
Sir Archibald Alison led on the Highland Brigade,
And great havoc amongst the enemy they made,
And village after village they captured and destroyed,
Until King Coffee lost heart and felt greatly ann...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...d,
And make me proud of my Highland Brigade;
Then followed the command, sharp and clear,
While the war notes of the 42d bagpipes smote the ear.
The soldiers, though young, were cool and steady,
And to face the enemy they were ever ready,
And still as the bare-kneed line unwavering came on
It caused the Russians to shake and look woebegone.
And now as the din of the fight grew greater,
Fear filled the hearts of the Russian giants in stature,
Because the kilted hero...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...said, If they won't attack us, we must attack them,
So start to your feet, my lads, and never fear,
And strike up your bagpipes, and give a loud cheer.
So they leapt to their feet, and gave a loud cheer,
While the Arabs swept down upon them without the least fear,
And put aside their rifles, and grasped their spears;
Whilst the British bullets in front of them the earth uptears.
Then the British charged them with their cold steel,
Which made the Arabs backward for ...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...Gordon Highlanders soon put an end to the fight,
Oh! it was a most gorgeous and thrilling sight,
To see them with their bagpipes playing, and one ringing cheer,
And from Smith's Hill they soon did the Boers clear.
And at the charge of the bayonet they made them fly,
While their leaders cried, "Forward, my lads, do or die",
And the Boers' blood copiously they did spill,
And the Boers were forced to fly from Smith's Hill.
And in conclusion I hope and pray
The Britis...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...And such has been the case in this Egyptian war,
For at the charge of the bayonet they ran from them afar!
With their bagpipes playing, and one ringing cheer,
And the 42nd soon did the trenches clear;
Then hand to hand they did engage,
And fought like tigers in a cage.
Oh! it must have been a glorious sight
To see Sir Garnet Wolseley in the thickest of the fight!
In the midst of shot and shell, and the cannons roar,
Whilst the dead and the dying lay weltering in their...Read more of this...
by
McGonagall, William Topaz
...heir hoofs they trampled them all o'er.
And as for John McLeod-- the pipe-major of the 93rd,
He kept sounding his bagpipes and couldn't be stirred--
Because he remembered his duty in the turmoil,
And in the battlefield he was never known to recoil.
And as for Major General McBain-- he was the hero in the fight;
He fought heroically-- like a lion-- with all his might;
And again and again he was met by desperate odds,
But he scattered them around him and made them k...Read more of this...
by
Tagore, Rabindranath
...-clouds rumble in the sky and June showers come down.
The moist east wind comes marching over the heath to blow its
bagpipes among the bamboos.
Then crowds of flowers come out of a sudden, from nobody knows
where, and dance upon the grass in wild glee.
Mother, I really think the flowers go to school underground.
They do their lessons with doors shut, and if they want to
come out to play before it is time, their master makes them stand
in a corner.
When the...Read more of this...
by
Yeats, William Butler
...it and blossom
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.
The little fox he murmured,
'O what of the world's bane?'
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
'O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world's bane.'
When their hear...Read more of this...
by
Carroll, Lewis
...Night
Dashed him to earth, and held him tight.
Tortured, unaided, and alone,
Thunders were silence to his groan,
Bagpipes sweet music to its tone:
"What? Ever thus, in dismal round,
Shall Pain and Mystery profound
Pursue me like a sleepless hound,
"With crimson-dashed and eager jaws,
Me, still in ignorance of the cause,
Unknowing what I broke of laws?"
The whisper to his ear did seem
Like echoed flow of silent stream,
Or shadow of forgotten dream,
The whisper t...Read more of this...
by
Akhmatova, Anna
...gn lands
Or took out from the memory
Forever the road thence..
Snow flies, like a cherry blossom,
Distant bagpipes desist..
And, it seems like, nobody knows
That the white house does not exist.
x x x
He walked over fields and over village,
And asked people from afar:
"Where is she, where is the happy glimmer
Of her eyes that are gray stars?
Here the final days of spring
Come along, in turbid fire.
Still more frequent, still ...Read more of this...
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