Like great men before me (Lars, for one), I am taking leave of the blog for a few days. In the words of Longfellow:

The Landlord ended thus his tale,

Then rising took down from its nail

The sword that hung there, dim with dust

And cleaving to its sheath with rust,

And said, “This sword was in the fight.”

The Poet seized it, and exclaimed,

“It is the sword of a good knight,

Though homespun was his coat-of-mail;

What matter if it be not named

Joyeuse, Colada, Durindale,

Excalibar, or Aroundight,

Or other name the books record?

Your ancestor, who bore this sword

As Colonel of the Volunteers,

Mounted upon his old gray mare,

Seen here and there and everywhere,

To me a grander shape appears

Than old Sir William, or what not,

Clinking about in foreign lands

With iron gauntlets on his hands,

And on his head an iron pot!”

All laughed; the Landlord’s face grew red

As his escutcheon on the wall;

He could not comprehend at all

The drift of what the Poet said;

For those who had been longest dead

Were always greatest in his eyes;

And be was speechless with surprise

To see Sir William’s pluméd head

Brought to a level with the rest,

And made the subject of a jest.