Speaking of Lewis and verse, a family member gave me a copy of Alan Jacobs's biography of Lewis, The Narnian, for Christmas. Jacobs discusses poetry's power over the intellectuals of Lewis's generation; the best illustration of this comes in the context of Lewis's lifelong love for A. E. Housman's The Shropshire Lad:
When [Lewis] was about sixty he and his wife were found—by her son—weeping in the common room of their house. "Nothing's wrong, Doug," Lewis said. "We're reading the poems of A. E. Housman and they always do this to us."Generally, the best responses my generation can summon for verse are genial admiration and contemplative silence; I only know one or two people who admit to ever having wept over poetry.
1 comment:
I have always loved Lewis's poem 'As the Ruin Falls.' I like simple things, and I suspect I have a bad ear for poetry, but be your own judge.
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.
Clive Staples Lewis
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