Lyric Poem · Grief
Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
by Alfred, Lord Tennyson · 1847
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.’
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“Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — quilloak.com/poems/home-they-brought-her-warrior-dead
Quick facts
- Poem
- Home They Brought Her Warrior Dead
- Poet
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson
- Published
- 1847
- Length
- 16 lines
- Form
- Lyric Poem
- Themes
- Grief, War & Remembrance, Sad
Craft notes
How this poem works
Measured from the text on this page, not copied from a summary. Counts are approximate: syllables and rhymes come from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, which models General American English, so dialect, older pronunciation, and performance can all change what you hear.
- Shape
- 16 lines · 4 quatrains
- Line length
- Mostly 7-syllable lines.
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Text, source & rights
A traceable edition
Full-text display is based on the committed source record and a United States term-expiry review.
- Author record
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892
- Source record
- PoetryDBHome They Brought Her Warrior Dead by alfred-lord-tennyson, PoetryDB transcription
- Display decision
- Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
- Publication record
- 1847
- Text fingerprint
- SHA-256 50f0dc7422ea3ca6…
- Editorial handling
- Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.
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