ADD: Stories/Songs of the Sepoy Mutiny

Subject: ADD: Stories/Songs of the Sepoy Mutiny
From: JenEllen
Date: 24 Sep 01 - 04:44 PM

Robert Traill Spence Lowell:
The Relief of Lucknow
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On, 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 waken 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! Oh, dinna ye hear
The slogan far away
The McGregor's. Oh! I ken it week
It 's the grandest o' them a'!

"God bless the 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 that 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 coming'? 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 time, 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."

Subject: RE: ADD: Stories/Songs of the Sepoy Mutiny
From: JenEllen
Date: 24 Sep 01 - 04:45 PM

John Greenleaf Whittier
The Pipes at Lucknow
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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 bloom 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 and 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 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 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 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!

Subject: RE: ADD: Stories/Songs of the Sepoy Mutiny
From: Joe Offer
Date: 24 Sep 01 - 04:51 PM

Hi, JenEllen - got any background information for us. Are these sung, or recitations?
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: ADD: Stories/Songs of the Sepoy Mutiny
From: GUEST,Russ
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 10:29 AM

In some circles the event is now called "The Independence Struggle of 1857" or "The First War for Indian Independence".

Surprising what a name change can do.

Subject: RE: ADD: Stories/Songs of the Sepoy Mutiny
From: Les from Hull
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 03:08 PM

I had to learn some of that second one at school. I could always remember songs better than poems and we found that it goes quite well to 'The yellow rose of Texas'!

Subject: RE: ADD: Stories/Songs of the Sepoy Mutiny
From: The Walrus
Date: 25 Sep 01 - 05:40 PM

Another from the Indian Mutiny/Sepoy Mutiny of 1857/8

The Fall of Delhi

O Come fill up a bumper,
Our toil at length is done,
The Pandies are defeated
And Delhi has been won.
Great men were they, in their own eyes,
At least, then, so they thought
But we took the shine out of them
On the 12th at Trimmu Ghat.
When a-hunting we did go, my boys,
A-hunting we did go.
To chase those Pandies night and day,
And levelled Delhi low.

A-thisting to avenge, my boys,
The bloodshed that's been done.
On poor defenceless women,
'Ere Delhi had been won.
We made those Pandies for to know.
We caused them for to feel,
That British wrongs will be avenged
By stirling British steel,
When a-huntig we did go, my boys etc.

On the fouteenth of September,
I remember well the date,
We showed the Pandies a new hit
When we stormed the Kashmir Gate.
Theirgrapeshot, shell and musketry,
They found but little good.
When British soldiers were outside
A-thirsting for their blood
When a hunting we did go etc.

IIRC this appears in Winstock's "Songs and Music of the Redcoats". No tune is given, but it fits to the old (pre-1860s)"British Grenadiers".

"Pandy/Pandies" was the British nickname for the mutineers/rebels and derived from one Mangel Pande who was one of the first (during 1857) to try to raise a mutiny (unsucessfully in his case - I believe he was hanged, but he might have been shot down "in the act" - memory fails me here).

Walrus