The Great Mirror of Same-Sex Love - Poetry - 105. "Till tireless propaganda tames" -- a voice from the wardrobe

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C.S. Lewis – a Voice from the Wardrobe

 

 

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.

 

And the call of the roads is upon me, a desire in my spirit has grown

To wander forth in the highways, ‘twixt earth and sky alone,

And seek for the lands no foot has trod and the seas no sail has known:

 

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 earth

And fear no morrow to bring them sorrow, nor night to quench their mirth.

 

 

tu ne quaesieris

 

For all the lore of Lodge and Myers

I cannot heal my torn desires,

Nor hope for all that man can spear

To make the riddling earth grow clear.

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?

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.

 

 

The Prudent Jailer

 

Always the old nostalgia? Yes.

We still remember times before

We had learned to wear the prison dress

Or steel rings rubbed our ankles sore.

 

Escapists? Yes. Looking at bars

And chains, we think of files; and then

Of black nights without moon or stars

And luck befriending hunted men.

 

Still when we hear the trains at night

We envy the free travelers, whirled

In how few moments past the sight

Of the blind wall that bounds our world.

 

Our Jailer (well he may) prefers

Our thoughts should keep a narrower range.

‘The proper study of prisoners

Is prison,’ he tells us. Is it strange?

 

And if old freedom in our glance

Betrays itself, he calls it names

‘Dope’—’Wishful thinking’—or ‘Romance’,

Till tireless propaganda tames.

 

All but the strong whose hearts they break,

All but the few whose faith is whole,

Stone walls cannot a prison make

Half so secure as rigmarole.

 

 

Posturing

 

Because of endless pride

Reborn with endless error,

Each hour I look aside

Upon my secret mirror

Trying all postures there

To make my image fair.

 

Thou givest grapes, and I,

Though starving, turn to see

How dark the cool globes lie

In the white hand of me,

And linger gazing thither

Till the live clusters wither.

 

So should I quickly die

Narcissus-like of want,

But, in the glass, my eye

Catches such forms as haunt

Beyond nightmare, and make

Pride humble for pride's sake.

 

Then and then only turning

The stiff neck round, I grow

A molten man all burning

And look behind and know

Who made the glass, whose light makes dark, whose fair

Makes foul, my shadowy form reflected there

That self-Love, brought to bed of Love may die and bear

Her sweet son in despair.

 

 

To a Friend

 

If knowledge like the mid-day heat

Uncooled with cloud, unstirred with breath

Of undulant air, begins to beat

On minds one moment after death,

 

From your rich soil that lives will spring,

What flower-entangled paradise,

Through what green walks the birds will sing,

What med’cinable gums, what spice,

 

Apples of what smooth gold! But fear

Gnaws at me for myself; the noon

That nourishes Earth can only sear

And scald the responding Moon.

 

Her gaping valleys have no soil,

Her needle-pointing hills are bare;

Water, poured on those rocks, would boil,

And day lasts long, and long despair.

 

 

Angel's Song

 

I know not, l,

What the men together say,

How lovers, lovers die

And youth passes away.

 

Cannot understand

Love that mortal bears

To native, native land,

All lands are theirs;

 

Why at grave they grieve

For one voice and face,

And not, and not receive

Another in its place.

 

I above the cone

Of the circling night

Flying, never have known

Less or greater light.

 

Sorrow it is they call

This cup whence my lip

(Woe's me never in all

My endless days can sip.)

 

 

As the Ruin Falls

 

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.

I never had a selfless thought since I was born.

I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:

I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

 

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,

I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:

I talk of love – a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek –

But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

 

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.

I see the chasm. And everything you are was making

My heart into a bridge by which I might get back

From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

 

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains

You give me are more precious than all other gains.

 

 

Sweet Desire

 

These faint wavering far-traveled gleams

Coming from your country, fill me with care. That scent,

That sweet stabbing, as at the song of thrush,

That leap of the heart – too like they seem

To another air; unlike as well

So that I am dazed with doubt. As a dungeoned man

Who has heard the hinge on the hook turning

Often. Always that opened door

Let new tormentors in. If now at last

It open again, but outward, offering free way,

(His kind one come, with comfort) he

Yet shrinks, in his straw, struggling backward,

From his dear, from his door, into the darkest corner,

Furthest from freedom. So, fearing, I

Taste not but with trembling. I was tricked before.

All the heraldry of heaven, holy monsters,

With hazardous and dim half-likeness taunt

Long-haunted men. The like is not the same.

Always evil was an ape. I know.

Who passes to paradise, within that pure border

Finds there, refashioned, all that he fled from here.

And yet . . .

But what's the use? For yield I must,

Though long delayed, at last must dare

To give over, to be eased of my iron casing,

Molten at thy melody, as men of snow

In the solar smile. Slow-paced I come,

Yielding by inches. And yet, oh Lord, and yet,

—Oh Lord, let not likeness fool me again.

 

 

Forbidden Pleasure

 

Quick! The black, sulphurous, never quenched,

Old festering fire begins to play

Once more within. Look! By brute force I have wrenched

Unmercifully my hands the other way.

 

Quick, Lord! On the rack thus, stretched tight,

Nerves clamoring as at nature's wrong.

Scorched to the quick, whipped raw – Lord, in this plight

You see, you see no man can suffer long.

 

Quick, Lord! Before new scorpions bring

New venom – ere fiends blow the fire

A second time – quick, show me that sweet thing

Which, 'spite of all, more deeply I desire.

 

 

 

~

 

 

https://medium.com/belover/c-s-lewis-a-queer-history-c3056782ff44

 

 

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