| Rupert Brooke (1887–1915). Collected Poems. 1916. |
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| II. 1908–1911 |
| 29. Victory |
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| ALL night the ways of Heaven were desolate, | |
| Long roads across a gleaming empty sky. | |
| Outcast and doomed and driven, you and I, | |
| Alone, serene beyond all love or hate, | |
| Terror or triumph, were content to wait, | 5 |
| We, silent and all-knowing. Suddenly | |
| Swept through the heaven low-crouching from on high, | |
| One horseman, downward to the earth’s low gate. | |
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| Oh, perfect from the ultimate height of living, | |
| Lightly we turned, through wet woods blossom-hung, | 10 |
| Into the open. Down the supernal roads, | |
| With plumes a-tossing, purple flags far flung, | |
| Rank upon rank, unbridled, unforgiving, | |
| Thundered the black battalions of the Gods. | |
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