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Posted by Johannes on January 31, 19102 at 10:52:35:
In Reply to: As the Ruin Falls (C.S. Lewis) posted by Kristin on April 16, 19101 at 21:10:50:
: Here is a beautiful poem by Lewis.. many people do not realize that he was a poet as well as an author...
: 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 adn self-seeking through and through:
: I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
: Peace, re-urance, 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 began.
: 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.
: ::sigh:: isn't it beautiful?
I don't think that's the point. You can't read
the poem, sigh and make complacent remarks on
its beauty. There is no place for aesthetic
astimation. The poem has to shatter all our smug
'appreciation' of a piece of art. It has to
shatter all one's illusions about oneself.
Otherwise it isn't read properly.
C.S. Lewis isn't somebody to be celebrated
by us; he is somebody who shall make us
reflect on ourselves.