A 1849 popular song.
Words by Alfred Tennyson.
Music by Miss M. Lindsay.
This was an important poem of its day, the kind people would memorize. Musically it has been reprinted many times over the years.
The sheet music:
Accompaniment by James Pitt-Payne:
Lyrics
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 prais’d him soft and low
Call’d him worthy to be lov’d
Truest friend and noblest foe
Yet she neither spoke nor mov’d
Stole a maiden from her place
Lightly to the warrior stept
Took the face cloth from his face
Yet she neither mov’d nor wept
Rose a nurse of ninety years
Set his child upon her knee
Like summer tempests came her tears
Like summer tempests came her tears
“Sweet my child, sweet my child I’ll live for thee,
Live for thee, I’ll live for thee”
Sung here by Vancha March: