Pipes in Arras

Then to the ravaged burgh, Champed into dust and sand, Came with the pipers' playing, Out of their own beloved land, Sea-sounds that moan for sorrow On a dispeopled strand.

There are in France no voices To speak of simple things, And tell how winds will whistle Through palaces of kings; Now came the truth to Arras In the chanter's warblings:

O build in pride your towers, But think not they will last; The tall tower and the shealing Alike must meet the blast, And the world is strewn with shingle From dwellings of the past."

But to the Grande Place, Arras, Came, too, the hum of bees, That suck the sea-pink's sweetness From isles of the Hebrides, And in Iona fashion Homes mid old effigies:

Our cells the monks demolished To make their mead of yore, And still though we be ravished Each Autumn of our store, While the sun lasts, and the flower, Tireless we'll gather more."

Up then and spake with twitt'rings Out of the chanter reed, Birds that each Spring to Appin, Over the oceans speed, And in its ruined castles Make love again and breed:

Already see our brothers Build in the tottering fane! Though France should be a desert, While love and Spring remain, Men will come back to Arras, And build and weave again."