As the Ruin Falls
Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)
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.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 28, 2023
- 41 sec read
- 170 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AXAX BCBC DEDE FF |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic hexameter |
Characters | 716 |
Words | 138 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 4, 4, 4, 2 |
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"As the Ruin Falls" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 20 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/6929/as-the-ruin-falls>.
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