A Broken Sword.
Henry Austin Dobson 1840 (Plymouth) – 1921
(To A. L.)
The shopman shambled from the doorway out
And twitched it down--
Snapped in the blade! 'Twas scarcely dear, I doubt,
At half-a-crown.
Useless enough! And yet can still be seen,
In letters clear,
Traced on the metal's rusty damaskeen--
"Povr Paruenyr."
Whose was it once?--Who manned it once in hope
His fate to gain?
Who was it dreamed his oyster-world should ope
To this--in vain?
Maybe with some stout Argonaut it sailed
The Western Seas;
Maybe but to some paltry Nym availed
For toasting cheese!
Or decked by Beauty on some morning lawn
With silken knot,
Perchance, ere night, for Church and King 'twas drawn--
Perchance 'twas not!
Who knows--or cares? To-day, 'mid foils and gloves
Its hilt depends,
Flanked by the favours of forgotten loves,--
Remembered friends;--
And oft its legend lends, in hours of stress,
A word to aid;
Or like a warning comes, in puffed success,
Its broken blade.
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Submitted on August 03, 2020
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 50 sec read
- 43 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | X ABAB XCBC DEDE FGFG HIHI JKJK LMLM |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic trimeter |
Characters | 900 |
Words | 168 |
Stanzas | 8 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4 |
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"A Broken Sword." Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/55566/a-broken-sword.>.
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