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THE OLD SWORD, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Old sword! Tho' dim and rusted
Last Line: A wreck of ancient time!
Alternate Author Name(s): Tennyson, Lord Alfred; Tennyson, 1st Baron; Tennyson Of Aldworth And Farringford, Baron
Subject(s): Swords


OLD Sword! tho' dim and rusted
Be now thy sheeny blade,
Thy glitt'ring edge encrusted
With cankers Time hath made;
Yet once around thee swell'd the cry
Of triumph's fierce delight,
The shoutings of the victory,
The thunders of the fight!

Tho' age hath past upon thee
With still corroding breath,
Yet once stream'd redly on thee
The purpling tide of death:
What time amid the war of foes
The dastard's cheek grew pale,
As through the feudal field arose
The ringing of the mail.

Old Sword! what arm hath wielded
Thy richly gleaming brand,
'Mid lordly forms who shielded
The maidens of their land?
And who hath clov'n his foes in wrath
With thy puissant fire,
And scatter'd in his perilous path
The victims of his ire?

Old Sword! whose fingers clasp'd thee
Around thy carved hilt?
And with that hand which grasp'd thee
What heroe's blood was split;
When fearlessly, with open hearts,
And lance to lance oppos'd,
Beneath the shade of barbed darts
The dark-ey'd warriors clos'd?

Old Sword! I would not burnish
Thy venerable rust,
Nor sweep away the tarnish
Of darkness and of dust!
Lie there, in slow and still decay,
Unfam'd in olden rhyme,
The relic of a former day,
A wreck of ancient time!







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