Spirits in Bondage

by C.S. Lewis

XIX. Milton Read Again (In Surrey)

Three golden months while summer on us stole
     I have read your joyful tale another time,
     Breathing more freely in that larger clime
     And learning wiselier to deserve the whole.

     Your Spirit, Master, has been close at hand
     And guided me, still pointing treasures rare,
     Thick-sown where I before saw nothing fair
     And finding waters in the barren land,

     Barren once thought because my eyes were dim.
     Like one I am grown to whom the common field
     And often-wandered copse one morning yield
     New pleasures suddenly; for over him

     Falls the weird spirit of unexplained delight,
     New mystery in every shady place,
     In every whispering tree a nameless grace,
     New rapture on the windy seaward height.

     So may she come to me, teaching me well
     To savour all these sweets that lie to hand
     In wood and lane about this pleasant land
     Though it be not the land where I would dwell.