The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

January 1, 2024 2:38 AM

I was up and out early to count sheep (60 legs, 15 head, all correct). Too cloudy for a New Year sunrise and I'm too deaf to hear The Piper at the Gates of Dawn [22 mins of Tony Walker] . . . but I thought about it. Full text of Chapter 7 Wind in the Willows (1908) [3800 words].

Van Morrison's riff. And of course The Waterboys. Obligatory mention of Pink Floyd. Blogger Sarah Toa's take.

posted by BobTheScientist (9 comments total)

'It's gone!' sighed the Rat, sinking back in his seat again. 'So beautiful and strange and new. Since it was to end so soon, I almost wish I had never heard it. For it has roused a longing in me that is pain, and nothing seems worth while but just to hear that sound once more and go on listening to it for ever. No! There it is again!' he cried, alert once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound.

'Now it passes on and I begin to lose it,' he said presently. 'O Mole! the beauty of it! The merry bubble and joy, the thin, clear, happy call of the distant piping! Such music I never dreamed of, and the call in it is stronger even than the music is sweet! Row on, Mole, row! For the music and the call must be for us.'
posted by chavenet at 2:49 AM on January 1 [7 favorites]

Pink Floyd is one of my favourite bands, and it never occurred to me that the title of their first album come from anything except the acid-washed meanderings of Syd Barrett's mind. I can completely see how the two things fit together, though.
posted by Shepherd at 3:07 AM on January 1 [4 favorites]

It’s perhaps my favorite chapter of the book, and also the chapter usually excised in the abridged version that most people end up getting now for some reason.

Had my son read the book. He said it was his favorite chapter too.
posted by caution live frogs at 5:09 AM on January 1 [5 favorites]

Wind in the Willows without the Piper at the Gates chapter!

But that's the heart of the book.

Well I mean, the book *has* got several hearts. There's the chapter where they see the shadow of the caged bird, and moley gets homesick too. And the one where they first meet Badger, and he grumps at them and shows them his home.
posted by Zumbador at 5:39 AM on January 1 [3 favorites]

I read Wind in the Willows to my daughter last year and I really can't express how bizarre a change of pace that chapter is from Mr. Toad's motorcar shenanigans in the rest of the book. One minute it's all "I see a car and poop poop off I go!" and the next it's a mystical description of a theophany of the Pan? It's delightful but so so weird.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:40 AM on January 1 [8 favorites]

I was up and out early to count sheep (60 legs, 15 head, all correct).

My astigmatic early morning eyes misread this as 66 legs, 15 head, which would be a most interesting flock to see.

I haven't reread Wind in the Willows since I was young, when I read and reread that book so many times that I could probably still recite sections. It's one of the many books from that era that I've idly wondered how they stand up today. I'm glad to see in the comments here that people are still reading it to their children.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:57 AM on January 1 [1 favorite]

I often read that chapter aloud to my Hospice patients when they are not up for conversation but desire compassionate presence and the sound of someone's voice near them.
posted by KingEdRa at 11:42 AM on January 1 [7 favorites]

A very favorite book of mine, my copy needs gentle hands now after 50? years of companionship. I think this chapter fits, though, as much of the first half of the book is definitely about love of place, and living sensibly with the land; as when poor Mole recalls his abandoned home and it calls to him. I find myself re-reading the book only up to the journey in the caravan, as I'm not as interested in Toad's misadventures as much as I am the descriptions of Rat and Mole in their country lives. This does give me an idea, now that I have some land: I can make a little Pan Island in my yard!
posted by winesong at 1:17 PM on January 1 [1 favorite]

My favourite chapter of the book too, along witgh the one where Mole revisits his old home. My father read it to my brother and I when we were little - I especially enjoyed his version of the fox, who "swaggered off sniggerinng". He was generally a non-fiction reader, but once told me that the only two novels he had ever really enjoyed were The Wind in the Willows and The Cruel Sea.

Incidentally, not only is this scene left out of modern edited editions of the book, but it doesn't appear in most film and TV versions (except the 2006 TV version).
posted by Fuchsoid at 11:37 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]