'Twas harvest time and close and warm,

A day when tankards foam,

But when there came the thunder-storm

We'd got the last load home;

We'd knocked off work—as custom is—

Though 'twern't but four o'clock,

And turned in to Jim Stevens's,

That keeps "The Fighting-Cock."

The rain roared down in thunder-thresh,

And roared itself away,

And left the earth as sweet and fresh

As though 'twas only May;

And from outside came stock and clove

And half-a-dozen more;

And then up steps a piping cove,

A-piping at the door.

We tumbles out to hear him blow,

Tu-wit, he blew, tu-wee,

On rummy pipes o' reeds a-row

Their likes I never see;

And as he blew he shook a limb

And capered like a goat,

And us bold lads we looks at him

Like rabbits at a stoat.

An oddly chap and russet red,

He capered and he hopped,

A bit o' sacking on his head

Although the rain had stopped:

Tu-wee he blew, he blew tu-wit,

All in the clean sunshine,

And oh, the creepy charm of it

Went crawling up my spine.

I don't know if the others dreamed—

'Cos why, they never tell—

But in a little bit it seemed

I knew the tune quite well;

It seemed to me I'd heard it once

In woods away and dim,

Where someone with a hornÉd sconce

Came capering like him.

It held me tight, that tune o' his,

It crawled on scalp and skin,

Till sudden—'long o' choir-practice—

The belfry bells swung in;

The piping cove he turned and passed,

Till through the golden broom

A mile along we saw him last

Go lone-like up the coombe.

The belfry bells they rang—one—two;

The spell was lift from me,

The spell the oddly piper blew—

Tu-wit, he went, tu-wee;

The spell was lift that he had laid,

But still—tu-wee, tu-wit—

I can't forget the tune he played,

And that's the truth of it.