OUR CONQUERING SWORDS

by: Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593)

      UR conquering swords shall marshall us the way
      We use to march upon the slaughter'd foe,
      Trampling their bowels with our horses' hoofs,
      Brave horses bred on the white Tartarian hills.
      My camp is like to Julius Caesar's host,
      That never fought but had the victory;
      Nor in Pharsalia was there such hot war
      As these, my followers, willingly would have.
      Legions of spirits, fleeting in the air,
      Direct our bullets and our weapons' points,
      And make your strokes to wound the senseless light;
      And when she sees our bloody colours spread,
      Then Victory begins to take her flight,
      Resting herself upon my milk-white tent--
      But come, my lords, to weapons let us fall;
      The field is ours, the Turk, his wife, and all.

"Our Conquering Swords" is reprinted from Tamburlaine the Great. Christopher Marlowe. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919.

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