Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OLD PIPER, by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD PIPER, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: With ears undulled of age, all night he heard
Last Line: As though still listening to the otterburn.


With ears undulled of age, all night he heard
The April singing of the Otterburn.
His wife slept quietly and never stirred,
Though he was restless and must toss and turn --
But she kept going all the day, while he
Was just a useless bundle in a chair,
And couldn't do a hand's turn -- seventy-three,
And crippled with rheumatics...
It was rare,
Hearing the curlew piping in the dark!
'Twas queer he'd got his hearing still so keen.
He'd be so bothered if he couldn't hark
To curlew piping, shrill and clear and clean --
Ay, clean, that note!
His piping days were done,
His fingers numb and stiff. And by the peat
All winter, or all summer in the sun,
He'd sit beside the threshold, in his seat,
Day-long, and listen to the Otterburn
That sang each day and night a different tune.
It knew more airs than he could ever learn
Upon the small-pipes. January to June,
And June to January, every hour
It changed its music. Now 'twas shrilling clear
In a high tinkling treble with a power
Of mellow undertones. And to his ear
Even the spates of winter over stones
Made no dull tuneless thundering; he heard
No single roar, but half a hundred tones
Eddying and swirling; blending, yet unblurred;
No dull-edged note, but each one razor-keen --
Though supple as the sword-blades interlaced
Over the morris-dancers' heads -- and clean!
But, nay, there was no word for it. 'Twas waste
Of breath to try and put the thing in words,
Though on his pipes he'd get the sense of it,
The feel -- ay, even of the calls of birds
He'd get some notion, though low-toned a bit --
His humming drone had not that quality
Of clean-cut piping. Any shepherd lad
Upon his penny-whistle easily
Could mimic the mere notes. And yet he had
A gift of feeling, somehow ... He must try
To-morrow if he couldn't tune his pipes,
Must get his wife to strap them carefully...
Hark, a new note among the birds -- a snipe's --
A small-pipe's note!...
Drowsing, he did not wake
Until his wife was stirring.
Nor till noon
He told her that he'd half-a-mind to take
His pipes and see if he could turn a tune
If she would fetch them. And regretfully
She brought the pipes and strapped them on and set
The bellows under his arm, and patiently
She held the reeds to his numb fingers. Yet
She knew 'twas worse than useless. Work and years
Had dulled that lively touch: each joint was stiff
And swollen with rheumatics...
Slowly tears
Ran down his weathered cheeks...
And then a whiff
Of peat-reek filled his nostrils: and quite still
He sat remembering. Memory was kind
And stript age off him.
And along the hill
By Golden Pots he strove against the wind --
In all his days he never again had known
A wind like thon -- on that November day.
For every step that he took forward, blown
Half-a-step backward, slowly he made way
Against it, buffeted and battered numb,
Chilled to the marrow, till he reached his door,
To find Jack Dodd, the pitman piper, come
To play a contest with him...
Nevermore
There'd be such piping!
Ay, Jack Dodd had heard
That he could play -- that up among the hills
There was a lad could pipe like any bird,
With half-a-hundred fancy turns and trills,
And give a lead even to Jack himself,
Jack Dodd, the pitmen's champion!
After tea
When they had smoked a while, down from the shelf
He'd reached his own small-pipes; and speedily
They two were at it, playing, tune for tune,
Against each other all the winter's night,
And all next morning till the stroke of noon,
Piping out bravely all their hearts' delight.

He still could see Jack, sitting there, so lean,
Long-backed, broad-shouldered, stooping and white-faced
With cropped black head, and black eyes burning keen;
Tight-lipped, yet smiling gravely: round his waist
His small-pipes strapped, the bellows 'neath his arm,
His nimble fingers lively at the reeds, --
His body swaying to the lilting charm
Of his own magic piping, till great beads
Of sweat were glistening on his low, white brow.

And he himself, a herd-lad, yellow-haired,
With wide eyes even bluer then than now,
Who sat bolt-upright in his chair and stared
Before him at the steady glowing peat
As though each note he played he caught in flight
From the loud wind, and in the quivering heat
Could see it dancing to its own delight.

All night the rafters hummed with piping airs,
And candle after candle guttered out;
But not a footstep climbed the creaky stairs
To the dark bedrooms. Turn and turn about,
They piped or listened; while the wind without
Roared round the steading, battering at the door
As though to burst it wide; then with a shout
Swept on across the pitchy leagues of moor.

Pitman and shepherd piping turn for turn,
The airs they loved, till to the melody
Their pulses beat; and their rapt eyes would burn
Thrilled with the sight that each most loved to see --
The pitman, gazing down a gallery
Of glittering black coal, an endless seam:
And through his piping stole the mystery
Of subterranean waters, and of dream
Corridors dwindling everlastingly.

The shepherd, from the top of Windy Gile
Looking o'er range on range of glowing hills,
A world beneath him, stretching, mile on mile,
Brown bent and heather, laced by flashing rills, --
His body flooded with the light that fills
The veins with running gold. And April light
And wind, and all the melody that spills
From tumbling waters, thrilled his pipes that night.

Ay, thon was playing, thon! And nevermore
The world would hear such piping. Jack was dead,
And he, so old and broken.
By the door
All day he sat remembering; and in bed
He lay beside his sleeping wife all night,
Too spent, too weary, even to toss and turn.
Dawn found him lying, strangely cold and white,
As though still listening to the Otterburn.





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