Spirits in Bondage

by C.S. Lewis

XXXVII - Tu Ne Quaesieris

For all the lore of Lodge and Myers
     I cannot heal my torn desires,
     Nor hope for all that man can speer
     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.