The Piper of Arll / Duncan Campbell Scott

The Piper of Arll
There was in Arll a little cove Where the salt wind came cool and free: A foamy beach that one would love, If he were longing for the sea.

A brook hung sparkling on the hill,                        5 The hill swept far to ring the bay; The bay was faithful, wild or still, To the heart of the ocean far away.

There were three pines above the comb That, when the sun flared and went down,                       	10 Grew like three warriors reaving home The plunder of a burning town.

A piper lived within the grove, Tending the pasture of his sheep; His heart was swayed with faithful love,                       	15 From the springs of God’s ocean clear and deep.

And there a ship one evening stood, Where ship had never stood before; A pennon bickered red as blood, An angel glimmered at the prore. 20

About the coming on of dew, The sails burned rosy, and the spars Were gold, and all the tackle grew Alive with ruby-hearted stars.

The piper heard an outlanded tongue,                       	25 With music in the cadenced fall; And when the fairy lights were hung, The sailors gathered one and all,

And leaning on the gunwales dark, Crusted with shells and dashed with foam,                       	30 With all the dreaming hills to hark, They sang their longing songs of home.

When the sweet airs had fled away, The piper, with a gentle breath, Moulded a tranquil melody                       	35 Of lonely love and longed-for death.

When the fair sound began to lull, From out the fireflies and the dew, A silence held the shadowy hull, Until the eerie tune was through. 40

Then from the dark and dreamy deck An alien song began to thrill; It mingled with the drumming beck, And stirred the braird upon the hill.

Beneath the stars each sent to each                       	45 A message tender, till at last The piper slept upon the beach, The sailors slumbered round the mast.

Still as a dream till nearly dawn, The ship was bosomed on the tide;                       	50 The streamlet murmuring on and on, Bore the sweet water to her side.

Then shaking out her lawny sails, Forth on the misty sea she crept; She left the dawning of the dales,                       	55 Yet in his cloak the piper slept.

And when he woke he saw the ship, Limned black against the crimson sun; Then from the disc he saw her slip, A wraith of shadow- she was gone. 60

He threw his mantle on the beach, He went apart like one distraught, His lips were moved- his desperate speech Stormed his inviolable thought.

He broke his human-throated reed,                       	65 And threw it in the idle rill; But when his passion had its mead, He found it in the eddy still.

He mended well the patient flue, Again he tried its varied stops;                       	70 The closures answered right and true, And starting out in piercing drops,

A melody began to drip That mingled with a ghostly thrill The vision-spirit of the ship,                       	75 The secret of his broken will.

Beneath the pines he piped and swayed, Master of passion and of power; He was his soul and what he played, Immortal for a happy hour. 80

He, singing into nature’s heart, Guiding his will by the world’s will, With deep, unconscious, child-like art Had sung his soul out and was still.

And then at evening came the bark                       	85 That stirred his dreaming heart’s desire; It burned slow lights along the dark That died in glooms of crimson fire.

The sailors launched a sombre boat, And bent with music at the oars;                       	90 The rhythm throbbing every throat, And lapsing round the liquid shores,

Was that true tune the piper sent, Unto the wave-worn mariners, When with the beck and ripple blent                       	95 He heard that outlanded song of theirs.

Silent they rowed him, dip and drip, The oars beat out an exequy, They laid him down within the ship, They loosed a rocket to the sky. 100 It broke in many a crimson sphere That grew to gold and floated far, And left the sudden shore-line clear, With one slow-changing, drifting star.

Then out they shook the magic sails,                       	105 That charmed the wind in other seas, From where the west line pearls and pales, They waited for a ruffling breeze.

But in the world there was no stir, The cordage slacked with never a creak,                       	110 They heard the flame begin to purr Within the lantern at the peak.

They could not cry, they could not move, They felt the lure from the charmed sea; They could not think of home or love                       	115 Or any pleasant land to be.

They felt the vessel dip and trim, And settle down from list to list; They saw the sea-plane heave and swim As gently as a rising mist. 120

And down so slowly, down and down, Rivet by rivet, plank by plank; A little flood of ocean flown Across the deck, she sank and sank.

From knee to breast the water wore,                       	125 It crept and crept; ere they were ware Gone was the angel at the prore, They felt the water float their hair.

They saw the salt plane spark and shine, They threw their faces to the sky;                       	130 Beneath a deepening film of brine They saw the star-flash blur and die.

She sank and sank by yard and mast, Sank down the shimmering gradual dark; A little drooping pennon last                       	135 Showed like the black fin of a shark.

And down she sank till, keeled in sand, She rested safely balanced true, With all her upward gazing band, The piper and the dreaming crew. 140 And there, unmarked of any chart, In unrecorded deeps they lie, Empearled within the purple heart Of the great sea for aye and aye.

Their eyes are ruby in the green                       	145 Long shaft of sun that spreads and rays, And upward with a wizard sheen A fan of sea-light leaps and plays.

Tendrils of or and azure creep, And globes of amber light are rolled,                       	150 And in the gloaming of the deep Their eyes are starry pits of gold.

And sometimes in the liquid night The hull is changed, a solid gem, That glows with a soft stony light,                       	155 The lost prince of diadem.

And at the keel a vine is quick, That spreads its bines and works and weaves O’er all the timbers veining thick A plenitude of silver leaves. 160