{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/victory",
 "title": "Victory",
 "ordinal": "IV",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "C. S. Lewis",
 "poet_slug": "c-s-lewis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spirits in Bondage",
 "book_slug": "spirits-in-bondage",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 4,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1919,
  "venue": "Spirits in Bondage (1919)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-4.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003",
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101865124"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 24,
  "n_stanzas": 6,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 47,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Roland is dead, Cuchulain’s crest is low,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The battered war-rear wastes and turns to rust,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Helen’s eyes and Iseult’s lips are dust",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The faerie people from our woods are gone,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No Dryads have I found in all our trees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "No Triton blows his horn about our seas",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "The ancient songs they wither as the grass",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And waste as doth a garment waxen old,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "All poets have been fools who thought to mould",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A monument more durable than brass.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "For these decay: but not for that decays",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The yearning, high, rebellious spirit of man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That never rested yet since life began",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From striving with red Nature and her ways.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Now in the filth of war, the baresark shout",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of battle, it is vexed. And yet so oft",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Out of the deeps, of old, it rose aloft",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That they who watch the ages may not doubt.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet, like the phoenix, from each fiery bed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And higher⁠—till the beast become a god.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}