Lyric Poem · Death & Loss

The Princess: A Medley: Home they Brought her Warrior Dead

by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Reading room

1Home they brought her warrior dead:

2She nor swoon'd nor utter'd cry:

3All her maidens, watching, said,

4"She must weep or she will die."

5Then they praised him, soft and low,

6Call'd him worthy to be loved,

7Truest friend and noblest foe;

8Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

9Stole a maiden from her place,

10Lightly to the warrior stepped,

11Took the face-cloth from the face;

12Yet she neither moved nor wept.

13Rose a nurse of ninety years,

14Set his child upon her knee —

15Like summer tempest came her tears —

16"Sweet my child, I live for thee."

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“The Princess: A Medley: Home they Brought her Warrior Dead” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson — quilloak.com/poems/the-princess-a-medley-home-they-brought-her-warrior-dead

Quick facts

Poem: The Princess: A Medley: Home they Brought her Warrior Dead
Poet: Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Length: 16 lines
Form: Lyric Poem
Themes: Death & Loss, Sad, Nature

Craft notes

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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 · 2 stanzas of 4–12 lines
Line length: Mostly 7-syllable lines.

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Author record: Alfred, Lord Tennyson1809–1892
Source record: PoetryDBThe Princess: A Medley: Home they Brought her Warrior Dead by alfred-lord-tennyson, PoetryDB transcription
Display decision: Full text · United States · reviewed 2026-07-18
Publication record: Not recorded in the imported source
Text fingerprint: SHA-256 bb45b303b5243919…
Editorial handling: Whitespace and stanza breaks normalized for web display; no material wording change recorded.

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Lyric Poem Death & Loss Sad Nature

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