Virtues of a Diamond Ring

Of the strange virtues of a ring,
In simple strains we now will sing,
Brave warrior of ancient France,
Where danger was he did advance.

But he at last was struck by ball
And on the battle field did fall,
They dug for him a shallow grave
And slightly cover’d warrior brave.

But his servant man with warm heart,
Loathed with his master thus to part,
So he moved soil from where he lay
And found a lump of lifeless clay.

He turned away in sad despair,
That could not be his master fair,
That famed brave youth of noble birth,
Now all stained o’er with blood and earth.

As he begins to move away
The moon reflects on brilliant ray,
From diamond ring on dead man’s finger
The servant now doth fondly linger.

For he knows it’s his master’s ring,
And hopes to life he may him bring,
In finger he discovers heat
And hopes his heart it still may beat.

Though surgeons they pronounce him dead,
For long he bathes his breast and head,
And slowly master did restore
To fight more brave than he had before.

And now this tale to close we bring,
Of warrior saved by a ring,
Full oft again to fight for king,
His praise his countrymen they sing.

Where this text comes from

First published in Poems of James McIntyre (1889). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/james-mcintyre_poetry, poetry.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L32.

Cite this poem

James McIntyre (1828?–1906). “Virtues of a Diamond Ring.” First published in Poems of James McIntyre (1889). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/james-mcintyre/virtues-of-a-diamond-ring/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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