Spirits in Bondage

by C.S. Lewis

XXX - Oxford

It is well that there are palaces of peace
     And discipline and dreaming and desire,
     Lest we forget our heritage and cease
     The Spirit's work-to hunger and aspire:

     Lest we forget that we were born divine,
     Now tangled in red battle's animal net,
     Murder the work and lust the anodyne,
     Pains of the beast 'gainst bestial solace set.

     But this shall never be: to us remains
     One city that has nothing of the beast,
     That was not built for gross, material gains,
     Sharp, wolfish power or empire's glutted feast.

     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.