Mary Stockton Hunter
A Japanese Sword Song (1895)
“Loyalty to my lord, and vengeance upon my lord’s slayer”
(Hush,
listen—my Soul, my Sword!)
Is he near, the Fox that skulks
And kills in
the dark, unseen?
Shall we, too, hide and strike
In the dark a
foe unclean?
Brave deeds are done in the day.
Sun God, give
me steel for sight.
War God, give me arm of steel
To avenge the
deed of night.
(His life for
life of my lord.)
(Hush,
listen—my Soul, my Sword!)
Not molten with toil of days
Was the steel
of your fashioning,
But with labor of strenuous years.
And the steel
was a living thing.
Through your eager, thirsting veins
The red drops
hissing ran.
Pure blood of a fiery Soul,
Proud spirit
of Man.
(His life for
life of my lord.)
(Hush,
listen—my Soul, my Sword!)
You writhe in my grasp, my Own—
He is near, the
Fox we snare!
You lift your quivering length,
One movement—one
chance—if he dare!
The blood that is in you gleams
Wicked red, with
flashes of light—
Now, Sword, my Soul, cleave clean!
Revenge is new
life, new sight!
(His life for
life of my lord.)
(Hush,
listen—my Soul, my Sword!)
Am I, too, wounded to death?
What matter?
My foot can spurn
His body, the Fox that skulked,
That killed in
the dark. I earn
Remembrance for loyal love.
For vengeance
unto the death—
And this is a glorious way
For a man to
yield his breath.
(His life for
life of my lord.)
‘A Japanese Sword Song’ appeared in Atlantic Monthly 75 (June 1895), p. 795.
