The Piper’s Lament

Sad was the day that our kilted heroes

Sailed o’er the ocean to face the wild Huns.

They fell in the fight whilst charging and cheering,

And gave up their lives ‘midst the roar of the guns.

The pibroch is sounding, sounding so sadly,

And Death, the darker reaper, is mowing away,

Like leaves in the forest in Autumn that’s shedding,

Caledonia’s proud clansmen are falling today.

O’er a field of the dead, wounded and dying,

Floats the sad strain the Gael kens it weel;

Pipers are playing in the dawn of the morning

“I’m wearin’ awa tae the land of the Leal.”

The pibroch is sounding, sounding so sadly,

From glen and valley comes the sad lay,

And Fingal is weeping o’er a red field of slaughter,

For the brave sons of Scotland that’s a’ wede away.

Brave Caledonia, for thee my heart’s bleeding,

And thy daughters, they languish in sorrow and woe,

When they think of the loved ones never returning,

But silently sleep in the land of the foe.

The pibroch is sounding where heroes have fallen

Like ocean weed cast on a surf-beaten shore;

McCrimon’s lament resounds from the mountains,

For the brave sons of Albion returning no more.

W.F. Dalgarno

(Published 1 January 1916)