The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Song of the Sword, by W. E. Henley

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Song of the Sword
and Other Verses

Author: W. E. Henley

Release Date: January 18, 2008 [eBook #24363]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SONG OF THE SWORD***

Transcribed from the 1892 David Nutt edition by David Price, email
ccx074@pglaf.org

THE SONG
OF THE SWORD
AND OTHER VERSES

BY

W. E. HENLEY

LONDON
Published by DAVID NUTT
in the Strand
1892

To R. T. Hamilton-Bruce

_Edinburgh_, _Mar._ 17, 1892

_With three exceptions_, _these numbers have appeared in_ '_The National
Observer_,' _by permission of whose proprietors they are here reprinted_.

THE SONG OF THE SWORD
(To Rudyard Kipling)

_The Sword_
_Singing_--
_The voice of the Sword from the heart of the Sword_
_Clanging imperious_
_Forth from Time's battlements_
_His ancient and triumphing Song_.

In the beginning,
Ere God inspired Himself
Into the clay thing
Thumbed to His image,
The vacant, the naked shell
Soon to be Man:
Thoughtful He pondered it,
Prone there and impotent,
Fragile, inviting
Attack and discomfiture:
Then, with a smile--
As He heard in the Thunder
That laughed over Eden
The voice of the Trumpet,
The iron Beneficence,
Calling His dooms
To the Winds of the world--
Stooping, He drew
On the sand with His finger
A shape for a sign
Of His way to the eyes
That in wonder should waken,
For a proof of His will
To the breaking intelligence:
That was the birth of me:
I am the Sword.

Hard and bleak, keen and cruel,
Short-hilted, long-shafted,
I froze into steel:
And the blood of my elder,
His hand on the hafts of me,
Sprang like a wave
In the wind, as the sense
Of his strength grew to ecstasy,
Glowed like a coal
At the throat of the furnace,
As he knew me and named me
The War-Thing, the Comrade,
Father of honour
And giver of kingship,
The fame-smith, the song-master,
Bringer of women
On fire at his hands
For the pride of fulfilment,
_Priest_ (saith the Lord)
_Of his marriage with victory_.
Ho! then, the Trumpet,
Handmaid of heroes,
Calling the pee