{
 "id": "henry-van-dyke-jr/the-broken-sword",
 "title": "The Broken Sword",
 "ordinal": null,
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "Henry van Dyke Jr.",
 "poet_slug": "henry-van-dyke-jr",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished",
 "book_slug": "poems-now-first-collected",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 5,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1911,
  "venue": "The Poems of Henry Van Dyke: Now First Collected and Revised, with Many Hitherto Unpublished (1911)",
  "note": "Taken from the 1911 first collected edition. That is the printing this text comes from and the first to give the poem a title, not necessarily the poem's first appearance: the volume's own title page describes it as now first collected and revised, and eleven of these twelve poems had already been printed untitled in Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land (1908).",
  "uncertain": true,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/henry-van-dyke-jr_poetry",
  "file": "poetry.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16229",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16134",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10679",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3525",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9372",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29314",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/43094",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsofhenryvand00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/buildersotherpoe00vandrich",
   "https://archive.org/details/toilingoffelixan00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/musicotherpoems0000henr_c7v6",
   "https://archive.org/details/poemsnowfirstcol00vanduoft",
   "https://archive.org/details/songsoutofdoors0000vand",
   "https://archive.org/details/thyseaisgreatour00vandiala",
   "https://archive.org/details/chosenpoems0000vand"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 14,
  "n_stanzas": 7,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Mine enemies have prevailed against me, O God:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou hast led me deep into their ambush.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "They surround me with a hedge of spears:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the sword in my hand is broken.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My friends also have forsaken my side:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From a safe place they look upon me with pity.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "My heart is like water poured upon the ground:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I have come alone to the place of surrender.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "To thee, to thee only will I give up my sword:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sword which was broken in thy service.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thou hast required me to suffer for thy cause:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By my defeat thy will is victorious.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O my King show me thy face shining in the dark:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "While I drink the loving-cup of death to thy glory.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}