Home they brought her warrior dead…
It was an office meeting. Two of my team mates and myself were going thru some intense discussions about an important professional decision we have to make for our business in the coming months. As we started wrapping up our discussions, we started talking about the passing away of a pet of one of my teammates.
He was particularly affected since he was very close to this pet. But more importantly the discussion was about how stoically his wife had taken to this sad passage….. till an innocuous event like he sharing a very old picture of the pet with his wife got her to completely break down.
Reminded me of an Alfred Tennyson poem – on the importance of crying. After my friends left, I looked up the poem and read it up again. It is a master stroke of Tennyson to convey the importance of crying as a natural way to relieve your inner feelings. And the wisdom of somebody who is ninety years old!!!!
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’
Then they praised him, soft and low,
Called him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.
Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.
Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee—
Like summer tempest came her tears—
‘Sweet my child, I live for thee.’
Alfred Lord Tennyson
Remember this poem from my eighth standard! Loved it….. Thanks for sharing it again. Wonderful words.
Yes..it was one of the poems, along with Robert Lee Frost’s Miles to go before I sleep, that I remembered from the school days..
Thanks Rajib. I was unfamiliar with this poem. ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ is a favorite but this is a side of Tennyson that’s new to me.
Asadharon kobita aar asadharon tomar uposthapona.
Asadharon tomar Bangla, Samudra
Used to remember it by heart. Nice to have read it again after more than 25 years.
Thanks Rajib for giving us the opportunity to recite it once again after so many years (may be more than thirty yrs.)
Down memory lane ……. thanx Rajib.
Good one Rajib
Rajib, I have an elderly cat on her last legs. May have to deal with this soon. Real soon. Sad
Beautiful poem which I have never read before. Thanks, Rajib, for introducing me to it. Here is poem by frost called reluctance that resonated when I re-read two weeks after I cremated my father. “I had to bow and accept the end of a season…http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238118