Famous Poets and Poems:  Home  |  Poets  |  Poem of the Month  |  Poet of the Month  |  Top 50 Poems  |  Famous Quotes  |  Famous Love Poems

Back to main page Search for:


FamousPoetsAndPoems.com / Poets / Thomas Moore / Poems
Biography
Poems
Quotes
Books
Popular Poets
Langston Hughes

Shel Silverstein

Pablo Neruda

Maya Angelou

Edgar Allan Poe

Robert Frost

Emily Dickinson

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

E. E. Cummings

Walt Whitman

William Wordsworth

Allen Ginsberg

Sylvia Plath

Jack Prelutsky

William Butler Yeats

Thomas Hardy

Robert Hayden

Amy Lowell

Oscar Wilde

Theodore Roethke

All Poets  

See also:

Poets by Nationality

African American Poets

Women Poets

Thematic Poems

Thematic Quotes

Contemporary Poets

Nobel Prize Poets

American Poets

English Poets

Thomas Moore Poems
Back to Poems Page
Lay His Sword By His Side by Thomas Moore
Lay his sword by his side -- it hath served him too well
Not to rest near his pillow below;
To the last moment true, from his hand ere it fell,
Its point was still turn'd to a flying foe.
Fellow-labourers in life, let them slumber in death,
Side by side, as becomes the reposing brave --
That sword which he loved still unbroke in its sheath,
And himself unsubdued in his grave.

Yet pause -- for, in fancy, a still voice I hear,
As if breathed from his brave heart's remains; --
Faint echo of that which, in Slavery's ear,
Once sounded the war-word, "Burst your chains."
And it cries, from the grave where the hero lies deep,
"Though the day of your Chieftain for ever hath set,
Oh leave not his sword thus inglorious to sleep --
It hath victory's life in it yet!

"Should some alien, unworthy such weapon to wield,
Dare to touch thee, my own gallant sword,
Then rest in thy sheath, like a talisman seal'd,
Or return to the grave of thy chainless lord.
But, if grasp'd by a hand that hath learn'd the proud use
Of a falchion, like thee, on the battle-plain,
Then, at Liberty's summons, like lightning let loose,
Leap forth from thy dark sheath again!"
View Thomas Moore:  Poems | Quotes | Biography | Books

Home   |   About Project   |   Privacy Policy   |   Copyright Notice   |   Links   |   Link to Us   |   Tell a Friend   |   Contact Us
Copyright © 2006 - 2010 Famous Poets And Poems . com. All Rights Reserved.
The Poems and Quotes on this site are the property of their respective authors. All information has been
reproduced here for educational and informational purposes.