Page:A treasury of war poetry, British and American poems of the world war, 1914-1919.djvu/54

 SCOTLAND

N the burgh toun of Arras,

When gloaming had come on,

Fifty pipers played Retreat

As if they had been one,

And the Grande Place of Arras

Hummed with the Highland drone!

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;