| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | A Conquest | | By Walter Herries Pollock (1850–1926) |
| | | I FOUND him openly wearing her token; | |
| I knew that her troth could never be broken; | |
| I laid my hand on the hilt of my sword, | |
| He did the same, and he spoke no word; | |
| He faced me with his villainy; | 5 |
| He laugh’d, and said, ‘She gave it me.’ | |
| We search’d for seconds, they soon were found; | |
| They measured our swords; they measured the ground: | |
| They held to the deadly work too fast; | |
| They thought to gain our place at last. | 10 |
| We fought in the sheen of a wintry wood, | |
| The fair white snow was red with his blood; | |
| But his was the victory, for, as he died, | |
| He swore by the rood that he had not lied. | | | | |
|
|
