Roland is dead, Cuchulain's crest is low, <br />The battered war-rear wastes and turns to rust, <br />And Helen's eyes and Iseult's lips are dust <br />And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow. <br /> <br />The faerie people from our woods are gone, <br />No Dryads have I found in all our trees, <br />No Triton blows his horn about our seas <br />And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon. <br /> <br />The ancient songs they wither as the grass <br />And waste as doth a garment waxen old, <br />All poets have been fools who thought to mould <br />A monument more durable than brass. <br /> <br />For these decay: but not for that decays <br />The yearning, high, rebellious spirit of man <br />That never rested yet since life began <br />From striving with red Nature and her ways. <br /> <br />Now in the filth of war, the baresark shout <br />Of battle, it is vexed. And yet so oft <br />Out of the deeps, of old, it rose aloft <br />That they who watch the ages may not doubt. <br /> <br />Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod, <br />Yet, like the phoenix, from each fiery bed <br />Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head <br />And higher-till the beast become a god<br /><br />Clive Staples Lewis<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/victory-58/
