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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  The Relief of Lucknow

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

III. War

The Relief of Lucknow

Robert Traill Spence Lowell (1816–1891)

[September 25, 1857]

O, THAT last day in Lucknow fort!

We knew that it was the last;

That the enemy’s lines crept surely on,

And the end was coming fast.

To yield to that foe meant worse than death;

And the men and we all worked on;

It was one day more of smoke and roar,

And then it would all be done.

There was one of us, a corporal’s wife,

A fair, young, gentle thing,

Wasted with fever in the siege,

And her mind was wandering.

She lay on the ground, in her Scottish plaid,

And I took her head on my knee;

“When my father comes hame frae the pleugh,” she said,

“Oh! then please wauken me.”

She slept like a child on her father’s floor,

In the flecking of woodbine-shade,

When the house-dog sprawls by the open door,

And the mother’s wheel is stayed.

It was smoke and roar and powder-stench,

And hopeless waiting for death;

And the soldier’s wife, like a full-tired child,

Seemed scarce to draw her breath.

I sank to sleep; and I had my dream

Of an English village-lane,

And wall and garden;—but one wild scream

Brought me back to the roar again.

There Jessie Brown stood listening

Till a sudden gladness broke

All over her face; and she caught my hand

And drew me near as she spoke:—

“The Hielanders! O, dinna ye hear

The slogan far awa,

The McGregor’s?—O, I ken it weel;

It ’s the grandest o’ them a’!

“God bless thae bonny Hielanders!

We ’re saved! we ’re saved!” she cried;

And fell on her knees; and thanks to God

Flowed forth like a full flood-tide.

Along the battery-line her cry

Had fallen among the men,

And they started back;—they were there to die;

But was life so near them, then?

They listened for life; the rattling fire

Far off, and the far-off roar,

Were all; and the colonel shook his head,

And they turned to their guns once more.

But Jessie said, “The slogan ’s done;

But winna ye hear it noo,

The Campbells are comin’? It ’s no’ a dream;

Our succors hae broken through!”

We heard the roar and the rattle afar,

But the pipes we could not hear;

So the men plied their work of hopeless war

And knew that the end was near.

It was not long ere it made its way,—

A thrilling, ceaseless sound:

It was no noise from the strife afar,

Or the sappers under ground.

It was the pipes of the Highlanders!

And now they played Auld Lang Syne;

It came to our men like the voice of God,

And they shouted along the line.

And they wept, and shook one another’s hands,

And the women sobbed in a crowd;

And every one knelt down where he stood,

And we all thanked God aloud.

That happy day, when we welcomed them,

Our men put Jessie first;

And the general gave her his hand, and cheers

Like a storm from the soldiers burst.

And the pipers’ ribbons and tartan streamed,

Marching round and round our line;

And our joyful cheers were broken with tears,

As the pipes played Auld Lang Syne.