Tu Ne Quaesieris

by C.S. Lewis

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.

~another nice poem