O For Another Shall the Pipes Call?

Long o'er misty meadows, ere night flew years then,
When weeping you stood by my side and pledged thy heart undying,
Nae further did I hear when off to war you followed, brave warrior,
As I watched you fly 'cross the windy moor,
And no longer could your bright eyes give me comfort,
Nor could your Arms be mine to hold and be held,
And though we stood but farther apart on the world,
t'was if all the lakes and valley grew between us further,
When No more could your voice sooth me to sleep,
nor your gentle hands caress my own in simple joys.
I wandered then cross the heatherlands, waiting and waiting,
though as if a shade in the morning dew, to which misery,
my pleas heard, did like the crow fly to my side.
Long a day I have wept by our doorstep,
Where once you carried me over in a pledge of eternity,
To hold me as your own until death did we part,
And across the mountain down, the departed did return,
As I watched the lonely column file down the south road,
And pass before those who had love for them so.
And for them, the neighbor set up to the heights,
And from them blew the pipes in joy and homecoming,
So All might feast and make merry in this great return.
Yet no such joy fostered my heart.
I knew the ways of war, the Morrigan might have feasted apon you,
the crows, like those who circled my weary soul,
would, finding your brave heart, tear it from you, and thus, me,
And alone I would be again to spinster to the end of night,
Until she, too, claimed my bones for the auld cairn,
For even vows of love undying could die, should they not be born by the living.
And no love of mine could bring you back from the ashes of a battlefield fallow.
Aye, even as the pipes echoed down the mountainsides, and cheers arose,
So too were the lamentations, the keening wails,
As mothers, wives, daughters, as one, lay down in shock and grief.
Such a feeling built within my heart, and the road grew weary,
The greyness of the sky seemed to darken then,
as if the world had lost its reason to be bright and cheery.
Hope, I knew, was not for the shaken and lamenting, as I was,
For without my brave heart to come home, Would I not need to find another?
A ferriers wife, a baker, a smith, a man whom might not love me,
But rather need a wife to keep his house for his long days...
The thought did not appeal to me, and so, wordlessly, I followed the pipes,
Up the mountain roads, through sunshine and through shadow,
As about me, the end drew nigh, as night began to fall,
And the very chill of my bones became my knell,
As I stood one last time above the Perth Moors,
The heather was blooming across the way, 
The loch shimmered in long waves of light,
And behind me, the voices of the mountains roared.
T'was the place I wanted to remember most, 
Where last we met on one cruel winter's day,
Where At last, we might again see each other in peace.
Though by divine's embrace then two fools in war.
I would rather part in my own than by fate's decree.
And I stepped forward, as once final, the pipes did call.
And behind me, I heard your voice, felt your hands,
though truly they could not be so, I could not let you go so easily.
And around I turned, and in the light of the dying sky stood another.
T'was but a simple man from the village below, 
whose famiy had been cast out and exiled in his absence.
And, he stood there, seeing my grief and anguish,
Without speaking I knew his pain, as he knew mine, 
and together we wept for what was, for what wasn't, what could never be.
He took my hand in his and lead me back from where I stood unblinking,
Not asking for my hand, nor my life, nor my frozen heart,
But rather that we might weep together, and I leaned on him.
Together, we began the long walk home.