=Historical Note.= The Indian Mutiny was the great revolt of the Bengal native army (the Sepoys) against the British rule in 1857. At Lucknow, in northern India, the English were almost overcome. The town, defended by a garrison of only 1720 men, who were protecting many women and children, was besieged by a greatly superior number. The defense, nevertheless, was maintained from the 30th of June to the 26th of September, when the relief column under the Scottish general, Sir Henry Havelock, preceded by the music of the bagpipes, reached the city. =Discussion.= 1. What stanzas picture Scotland and the feeling her people have for the music of the bagpipe? 2. What contrasts show how universal this feeling is? 3. In the first stanza, what is this music said to be like? 4. What do you know about the bagpipe that makes this comparison especially apt? 5. The poem tells a story; with what stanzas does the story begin and end? 6. What relation to this story have the first two stanzas? 7. What do you know of the Indian Mutiny that helps you to understand this story? 8. Who first heard the sound of the pipes? 9. How is this accounted for? 10. What did this sound mean to her? 11. Read the stirring lines that give the spirit of the martial music of the pipes. 12. Why did the piper change to the air “Auld Lang Syne”? What stanzas picture the feeling of those who heard this music? 13. What people wear the “tartan”? The “turban”? 14. What is the most interesting point in the story? 15. Does the story make clear the poet’s reason for saying that the “sweetest strain” the pipes ever played was at Lucknow? =Phrases= droning of the torrents, 181, 3 treble of the rills, 181, 4 braes of broom, 181, 5 plaided mountaineer, 181, 10 ancient pibroch, 181, 13 the Indian tiger, 181, 17 jungle-serpent, 181, 19 low bewailing, 181, 27 cradle-crooning, 182, 11 vision of the seer, 182, 14 fierce as vengeance, 182, 29 Moslem mosque, 183, 6 pagan shrine, 183, 6 Goomtee cleaves the plain, 183, 12 SPANISH WATERS JOHN MASEFIELD Spanish waters, Spanish waters, you are ringing in my ears, Like a slow sweet piece of music from the gray forgotten years; Telling tales, and beating tunes, and bringing weary thought to me Of the sandy beach at Muertos, where I would that I could be. There’s a surf breaks on Los Muertos, and it never stops to roar, And it’s there we came to anchor, and it’s there we went ashore, Where the blue lagoon is silent amid snags of rotting trees, Dropping like the clothes of corpses cast up by the seas. We anchored at Los Muertos when the dipping sun was red, We left her half-a-mile to sea, to west of Nigger Head; And before the mist was on the Cay, before the day was done, We were all ashore on Muertos with the gold that we had won.