Piper's Refrain


I'll tell it to you as they told it to me
By the glow of the campfire burning.
By the banks of the water where we sported and played,
They once faced the fury of battle.

Chorus:
And up through the Champlain came the Highland Brigade
The pipes and the drummer played "Scotland the Brave."
But when they sailed home the piper's refrain
Was, Oh, how cruel the volley."

To one Duncan Campbell it came in a dream
That he'd meet his fate where he never had been;
Where the blue waters roll and the stickerbush tear,
It's "Travel well, Duncan, I'll wait for you there.

"For the French and the Indian have challenged our King."
(To a soldier like Duncan, no need to explain.)
"It's many a time I've travelled the waves
To find my fate in the fire."

From Fort William Henry their boats have shoved off
To the North of Lake George in the morning;
To the place the Frenchmen call Carillon,
And the Indians: Ticonderoga.

And the word struck Duncan like a thunderbolt there;
Everyone knew of the warning.
"Oh, give us a tune to remember me by,
For tomorrow I'll not be returning."

When the gunpowder flashed, the Highlanders died,
Never again to walk the hillside.
In the wilderness green, in the sun and the rain,
It's here they're forever remaining.

And I've told it to you as they told it to me,
Of one Duncan Campbell and the Highland Brigade.
When the campfires flicker in the summertime's wane,
through the mist on the water comes the piper's refrain.





Richard Nardin