Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–1892)

HOME they brought her warrior dead:

She nor swoon’d, nor utter’d cry:

All her maidens, watching, said,

‘She must weep or she will die.’

Then they praised him, soft and low,

Call’d 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 stept,

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.’