The poem was a short, poignant little thing. In a month it had carried Walter’s name to every corner of the globe. Everywhere it was copied– in metropolitan dailies and little village weeklies–in profound reviews and “agony columns,” in Red Cross appeals and Government recruiting propaganda. Mothers and sisters wept over it, young lads thrilled to it, the whole great heart of humanity caught it up as an epitome of all the pain and hope and pity and purpose of the mighty conflict, crystallized in three brief immortal verses. A Canadian lad in the Flanders trenches had written the one great poem of the war. “The Piper,” by Pte. Walter Blythe, was a classic from its first printing. — Rilla of Ingleside, ch. xix

Although Montgomery certainly had “In Flanders Field” by John McCrae in mind when she wrote Rilla of Ingleside [1], several versions of “The Piper” have been written since Rilla was published.

[1] L.M. Montgomery’s Personal Scrapbooks and Book Covers - Book Covers - Rilla of Ingleside http://lmm.confederationcentre.com/english/covers/rilla.html

1.

The Piper
by L.M. Montgomery

Montgomery submitted the poem to “Saturday Night” three weeks before her death. It was published on 2 May 1942. It was also intended to be part of “The Blythes are Quoted” (University of Guelph Collection XZ1 MS A098002).

One day the piper came down the Glen…
Sweet and long and low played he!
The children followed from door to door,
No matter how those who loved might implore,
So wiling the song of his melody
As the song of a woodland rill.

Some day the Piper will come again
To pipe the sons of the maple tree!
You and I wil lfollow from door to door,
Many of us will come back no more…
What matter that if Freedom still
Be the crown of each native hill?

2.

The Piper
Anon

pasted to rear fly leaf of Montgomery’s personal “Rainbow Valley”, now in University of Guelph Collection).

The piper piped in the valley
Of rainbow hopes and fears,
A song as old as the Angels
That fell on our idle ears;
And the elfin echoes of laughter
Were lost in the dying day,
As we forget, for the moment,
To lose ourselves in play.

He stood on the golden skyline
A mystic figure there,
His cloak, blown out behind him
On the smoke-blue evening air,
And the lilt of his distant piping
Was borne upon the wind
Beckoning— beckoning—beckoning us
To follow on behind.

He piped us out of the valley
Of rainbow hopes and fears,
He piped us into the cold world,
Of broken dreams and tears;
A gypsy lure in the twilight,
A song on the wind swept dawn,
Our hearts may faint within us—
Yet we follow, follow on.

3.

The Pipes
by Betsy Anne
“After reading “Rilla of Ingleside”

Newspaper clipping pasted to flyleaf of Montgomery’s personal copy of “Rilla of Ingleside”, now in University of Guelph Collection:

They played in a rainbow-haunted glen,
Those carefree girls and boys.
They played at being women and men,
And their hearts were full of joy.

They told the tale of the piper old
Who pip[ed] o’re the valley’s rim.
“He’ll come again,” said a laddie bold,
“And we’ll all of us follow him.”

He came again and they followed, too,
And many another lad
Followed him far for a purpose true,
Though home keeping hearts were sad.

Followed him into the distance grey,
To the poppied fields of France;
Over the hills and a-far away
In a brave, high-hearted dance.

And even his music piped them on
Away from the scenes of home—
Our lives were so empty while they were gone,
But youth is so keen to roam!

They followed the pipes to the camps of death,
From the farm and the glen and the glade;
They followed the pipes to their latest breath
Because of the tune they played.

What was the tune? Ah, we know it; we
Who waited the news to hear—
“Blood is the price of liberty”—
And they paid it, never you fear.

And now, though the horror has been removed,
And the days of fear are gone;
Some of the lads who are still beloved
Are following, following on!

Following on to a different strain,
And its echoes we oft have caught—
“Guard ye the freedom we helped to gain,
Guard well, or we died for naught!”

The world’s glad music was drowned in tears
That year when the pipes began.
Our lads gave freely their coming years
To brighten the world of man.

The piper still plays us the same brave song:
“Guard well— or they died in vain!”
But oh! may the years be many and long
Ere he pipes the first tune again.

Source

All three poems, and their sources come from:
http://www.amherst.edu/~mpteitel/piperpoems.html, last accessed March 2004.