Read "The Christmas Bagpipes" by Helen Gray Cone online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
THE QUIET DAYS
I heard on Christmas Eve the bonny bagpipes play; / The thin silver skirling, it sounded far away; / The yellow mellow light shone through my neighbor's panes, / And on the starry night came the shrill dear strains.
Despite the welter of the wide cold sea, / They brought bonny Scotland across the world to me; / And my heart knew the heather that my sense had never smelt, / And my spirit drank the hill wind my brows had never felt.
From the old kind books came the old friends trooping, / And the old songs called, like the curlew swooping; / And like a sudden sup that was hot and strong and sweet, / The love of bonny Scotland, it ran from head to feet.
O blessings on the heather hills, in white mist or sun! / O blessings on the kind books that make the clans as one! / And blessings on the bagpipes whose magic spanned the sea, / And brought bonny Scotland across the world to me!