Old things and rare my treasures are.

Survivors beyond memory
Old things and rare my treasures are.
Times folded gates, fast closed to me,
These lonely sentinels unbar.

Years do not weary them, nor mar
Their power of ancient wizardry;
Things old and rare my treasures are
Enchantment seeking memory.

Scarred wreck of long forgotten war
Austere, unchanging, silently
Dream, and the drums faint and far
Arouse the blazoned years for me.

Enchantment wakens memory;
Old things and rare my treasures are.

A poem by Ewart Oakeshott.



I wrote previously of Ewart Oakeshott, the rightly respected scholar of the sword. The above poem refers to his own collection of historic swords, and the sense of connection with the far away and long ago they brought to him.

Some might deride this as nostalgia or fantasy, but the past is never past for me.

AD&D is my old treasure, but when I draw it from the sheath,its still as sharp as the day it was forged.

Up the Old Guard!