C. S. Lewis

“ Every man a God would be Laughing through eternity If as God's his eyes could see. All the wizardries of God— Slaying matter with a nod, Charming spirits with his rod, With the singing of his voice Making lonely lands rejoice, Leaving us no will nor choice, Drawing headlong me and you As the piping Orpheus drew Man and beast the mountains through, By the sweetness of his horn Calling us from lands forlorn Nearer to the widening morn— All that loveliness of power Could be man's peculiar dower, Even mine, this very hour ”

“ All things he shall fulfill, And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears The wail of hearts he has broken, the sound of human ill? He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears, And how could it all go on, love, if he knew of laughter and tears? Ah, sweet, if a man could cheat him! If you could flee away Into some other country beyond the rosy West, To hide in the deep forests and be for ever at rest From the rankling hate of God and the outworn world's decay! ”

“ Round and round the warders grave walk upon the walls for ever And the wakeful dragons couch in the ports of ivory, Nothing is can trouble it, hate of the gods nor man's endeavour, And it shall be a resting-place, dear heart, for you and me. Through the wet and waving forest with an age-old sorrow laden Singing of the world's regret wanders wild the faerie maiden, Through the thistle and the brier, through the tangles of the thorn, Till her eyes be dim with weeping and her homeless feet are torn. ”

“ Is it an elder, bent and hoar Who, where the waste Atlantic swell On lonely beaches makes its roar, In his solitary tower Through the long night hour by hour Pores on old books with watery eye When all his youth has passed him by, And folly is schooled and love is dead And frozen fancy laid abed, While in his veins the gradual blood Slackens to a marish flood? For he rejoiceth not in the ocean's might, Neither the sun giveth delight, Nor the moon by night Shall call his feet to wander in the haunted forest lawn. ”

“ Though it were sure and proven well That I shall prosper, as they tell, In fields beneath a different sun By shores where other oceans run, When this live body that was I Lies hidden from the cheerful sky, Yet what were endless lives to me If still my narrow self I be And hope and fail and struggle still, And break my will against God's will, To play for stakes of pleasure and pain And hope and fail and hope again, Deluded, thwarted, striving elf That through the window of my self As through a dark glass scarce can see A warped and masked reality? ”

“ XXXIV. The Roads I stand on the windy uplands among the hills of Down With all the world spread out beneath, meadow and sea and town, And ploughlands on the far-off hills that glow with friendly brown. And ever across the rolling land to the far horizon line, Where the blue hills border the misty west, I see the white roads twine, The rare roads and the fair roads that call this heart of mine. I see them dip in the valleys and vanish and rise and bend From shadowy dell to windswept fell, and still to the West they wend, And over the cold blue ridge at last to the great world's uttermost end. ”

“ Hesperus the fairest Of all gods that are, Peace and dreams thou bearest In thy shadowy car, And often in my evening walks I've blessed thee from afar. Stars without number, Dust the noon of night, Thou the early slumber And the still delight Of the gentle twilit hours Rulest in thy right. When the pale skies shiver, Seeing night is done, Past the ocean-river, Lightly thou dost run, To look for pleasant, sleepy lands, That never fear the sun. ”

“ The sky above is sickening, the clouds of God's hate cover it, Body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought, Till the pain and noisy terror that these first years have wrought Seem but the soft arising and prelude of the storm That fiercer still and heavier with sharper lightnings fraught Shall pour red wrath upon us over a world deform. Thrice happy, O Despoina, were the men who were alive In the great age and the golden age when still the cycle ran On upward curve and easily, for them both maid and man And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive. ”

“ Too often have I sat alone When the wet night falls heavily, And fretting winds around me moan, And homeless longing vexes me For lore that I shall never know, And visions none can hope to see, Till brooding works upon me so A childish fear steals over me. I look around the empty room, The clock still ticking in its place, And all else silent as the tomb, Till suddenly, I think, a face Grows from the darkness just beside. I turn, and lo! it fades away, And soon another phantom tide Of shifting dreams begins to play, And dusky galleys past me sail, Full freighted on a faerie sea ”

“ But only the strange power Of unsought Beauty in some casual hour Can build a bridge of light or sound or form To lead you out of all this strife and storm; When of some beauty we are grown a part Till from its very glory's midmost heart Out leaps a sudden beam of larger light Into our souls. All things are seen aright Amid the blinding pillar of its gold, Seven times more true than what for truth we hold In vulgar hours. ”

“ XXXIX. World's Desire Love, there is a castle built in a country desolate, On a rock above a forest where the trees are grim and great, Blasted with the lightning sharp-giant boulders strewn between, And the mountains rise above, and the cold ravine Echoes to the crushing roar and thunder of a mighty river Raging down a cataract. Very tower and forest quiver And the grey wolves are afraid and the call of birds is drowned, And the thought and speech of man in the boiling water's sound. ”

“ We could revel day and night In all power and all delight If we learn to think aright.
XXXII. "Our Daily Bread" We need no barbarous words nor solemn spell To raise the unknown. It lies before our feet; There have been men who sank down into Hell In some suburban street, And some there are that in their daily walks Have met archangels fresh from sight of God, Or watched how in their beans and cabbage-stalks Long files of faerie trod. Often me too the Living voices call In many a vulgar and habitual place, I catch a sight of lands beyond the wall, I see a strange god's face. ”

“ How could wealth of star on star Dusted o'er the frosty night Fill thy spirit with delight And lead thee from this care of thine Up among the dreams divine, Were it not that each and all Of them that walk the heavenly hall Is in truth a happy isle, Where eternal meadows smile, And golden globes of fruit are seen Twinkling through the orchards green ”

“ XXIV. In Praise of Solid People Thank God that there are solid folk Who water flowers and roll the lawn, And sit an sew and talk and smoke, And snore all through the summer dawn. Who pass untroubled nights and days Full-fed and sleepily content, Rejoicing in each other's praise, Respectable and innocent. Who feel the things that all men feel, And think in well-worn grooves of thought, Whose honest spirits never reel Before man's mystery, overwrought. ”

“ The miracle is done And for one little moment we are one With the eternal stream of loveliness That flows so calm, aloft from all distress Yet leaps and lives around us as a fire Making us faint with overstrong desire To sport and swim for ever in its deep— Only a moment. O! but we shall keep Our vision still. One moment was enough, We know we are not made of mortal stuff. And we can bear all trials that come after, The hate of men and the fool's loud bestial laughter And Nature's rule and cruelties unclean, For we have seen the Glory-we have seen. ”

“ For who can say In what strange crew she loved to play, What demons or what gods of old Deep mysteries unto her have told At dead of night in worship bent At ruined shrines magnificent, Or how the quivering will she sent Alone into the great alone Where all is loved and all is known, Who now lifts up her maiden eyes And looks around with soft surprise Upon the noisy, crowded square, The city oafs that nod and stare, The bishop's court that gathers there, The faggots and the blackened stake Where sinners die for justice' sake? ”

“ Now in the filth of war, the baresark shout Of battle, it is vexed. And yet so oft Out of the deeps, of old, it rose aloft That they who watch the ages may not doubt. Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod, Yet, like the phoenix, from each fiery bed Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head And higher-till the beast become a god.
V. Irish Nocturne Now the grey mist comes creeping up From the waste ocean's weedy strand And fills the valley, as a cup If filled of evil drink in a wizard's hand ”

“ So long we have been wandering all this while By many a perilous sea and drifting isle, We scarce shall dare to look thereon and smile. Yea, when we are drawing very near to thee, And when at last the ivory port we see Our hearts will faint with mere felicity: But we shall wake again in gardens bright Of green and gold for infinite delight, Sleeping beneath the solemn mountains white, While from the flowery copses still unseen Sing out the crooning birds that ne'er have been Touched by the hand of winter frore and lean ”

“ Till I had found the open mountain heath Yellow with gorse, and rested there and stood To gaze upon the misty sea beneath, Or on the neighbouring wood, —That little wood of hazel and tall pine And youngling fir, where oft we have loved to see The level beams of early morning shine Freshly from tree to tree. Through the denser wood there's many a pool Of deep and night-born shadow lingers yet Where the new-wakened flowers are damp and cool And the long grass is wet. ”

“ Even if it be not all a dream in vain The ancient hope that still will rise again— Of a just God that cares for earthly pain, Yet far away beyond our labouring night, He wanders in the depths of endless light, Singing alone his musics of delight ”

“ Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right, Our mercy and long seeking of the light, Shall we change these for thy relentless might? Laugh then and slay. Shatter all things of worth, Heap torment still on torment for thy mirth— Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth. ”

“ For the lands to the west of the evening and east of the morning's birth, Where the gods unseen in their valleys green are glad at the ends of the earth And fear no morrow to bring them sorrow, nor night to quench their mirth. ”

“ He shall no more rise suddenly in the dawn When mists are white and the dew lies pearly Cold and cold on every meadow, To take his joy of the season early, The opening flower and the westward shadow, And scarcely can he dream of laughter and love, They lie so many leaden years behind. ”

“ XXIII. Alexandrines There is a house that most of all on earth I hate. Though I have passed through many sorrows and have been In bloody fields, sad seas, and countries desolate, Yet most I fear that empty house where the grasses green Grow in the silent court the gaping flags between, And down the moss-grown paths and terrace no man treads Where the old, old weeds rise deep on the waste garden beds. ”

“ But when this searching thought of mine Is mingled in the large Divine, And laughter that was in my mouth Runs through the breezes of the South, When glory I have built in dreams Along some fiery sunset gleams, And my dead sin and foolishness Grow one with Nature's whole distress, To perfect being I shall win, And where I end will Life begin. ”

“ Atoms dead could never thus Stir the human heart of us Unless the beauty that we see The veil of endless beauty be, Filled full of spirits that have trod Far hence along the heavenly sod And see the bright footprints of God. ”

“ Like eyes of one long dead the empty windows stare And I fear to cross the garden, I fear to linger there, For in that house I know a little, silent room Where Someone's always waiting, waiting in the gloom To draw me with an evil eye, and hold me fast— Yet thither doom will drive me and He will win at last. ”

“ Come swiftly down the sky, O Lady Night, Fall through the shadow-country, O most kind, Shake out thy strands of gentle dreams and light For chains, wherewith thou still art used to bind With tenderest love of careful leeches' art The bruised and weary heart In slumber blind. ”

“ And in my dreams I stood alone Upon a shelf of weedy stone, And saw before my shrinking eyes The dark, enormous breakers rise, And hover and fall with deafening thunder Of thwarted foam that echoed under The ledge, through many a cavern drear, With hollow sounds of wintry fear. And through the waters waste and grey, Thick-strown for many a league away, Out of the toiling sea arose Many a face and form of those Thin, elemental people dear Who live beyond our heavy sphere. ”

“ We are not wholly brute. To us remains A clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams, A place of visions and of loosening chains, A refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams. She was not builded out of common stone But out of all men's yearning and all prayer That she might live, eternally our own, The Spirit's stronghold-barred against despair. ”

“ The good is dead. Let us curse God most High. Four thousand years of toil and hope and thought Wherein man laboured upward and still wrought New worlds and better, Thou hast made as naught. We built us joyful cities, strong and fair, Knowledge we sought and gathered wisdom rare. ”

“ The ancient songs they wither as the grass And waste as doth a garment waxen old, All poets have been fools who thought to mould A monument more durable than brass. For these decay: but not for that decays The yearning, high, rebellious spirit of man That never rested yet since life began From striving with red Nature and her ways. ”