His gallant form is lying on
The cold and blood-stained ground,
While thunders of the battle-field
Are raging loud around.
His helmet with its waving plume
Is lying by his side,
And from his heart the warm life-blood
Is flowing like a tide.

His blood-stained sword that's been his friend
In many a well-fought field,
Has fallen from his nerveless hand,
Unable now to wield.
The hue of death is on his cheek,.
And in his bloodshot eye,
He feels the death-chill on his brow,
And knows that he must die.

"Oh, raise my languid form," he says,
"And let me see once more
The charge of my own legions brave,
As on the foe they pour.
Go, go to them,and tell them
'Tis my last request, my all,
To onward press to victory,
And avenge their leader's fall!"

They raised him from the cold, damp ground,—
His faithful followers there,— 
And wiped the clotted blood from out
His dark and matted hair.
He glanced one moment on the fight—
The spirit fires him now—
"Oh, give me once my steed," he says,
"My helmet on my brow,

"And I will lead my men once more
To victory, or to death!"—
That moment with his life-blood passed
His last, his latest breath.
But victory crowned his banners bright,
His last high wish was granted,
That wish for which his blood was spilt,
For which his soul had panted.

To the wedding of Shon Maclean
Twenty pipers together
Came in the wind and the rain
Playing across the heather;
Backward their ribbons flew
Blast upon blast they blew
Each clad in tartan new,
Bonnet and blackcock feather;
And every piper was fou,
Twenty pipers together!

At the wedding of Shon Maclean
They blew with lungs of leather,
And blythesome was the strain
Those pipers played together!
Moist with the mountain-dew,
Mighty of bone and thew,
Each with the bonnet of blue
Tartan and blackcock feather;
And every piper was fou,
Twenty pipers together!

At the wedding of Shon Maclean,
Twenty pipers together,
They blew with might and main,
Through wonderful lungs of leather!
Wild was the hullabaloo!
They stamped, they screamed, they crew!
Twenty strong blasts they blew,
Holding the heart in tether;
And every piper was fou,
Twenty pipers together!

The small stars twinkled over the heather,
As the pipers wandered away together
But one by one on the journey dropt,
Clutching his pipes, and there he stopt!
One by one on the dark hillside
Each faint blast of the bagpipes died,
Amid the wind and the rain!
And the twenty pipers at break of day
In twenty different bogholes lay,
Serenely sleeping upon their way
From the wedding of Shon Maclean.