Keep your Powder Dry

Keep prepared for action; keep your courage up.

“Go forth and conquer, Strephon mine,

This kiss upon your lips retaining;

A precept that is also thine

Forbids the teardrop hot and straining.

Weʹre Mars and Venus, you and I,

And both must ‘keep our powder dry.ʹ”

Sims: Dagonet Ballads (In Love and War).

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.