I feel I may have been rather dismissive of C.S. Lewis yesterday, when I said that I was having difficulty in finding interesting examples of his work.

So, over the next few days I shall post more of his poetry - and let you make up your own minds.

This poem describes the reforming, beneficial influence of Lewis's wife Joy, who died from cancer two years after they were marrried.

They had been a deeply devoted couple and he was overcome with grief, from which he never really recovered.

lewis
C.S. Lewis with his wife (Joy Gresham)


AS THE RUIN FALLS

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.

C.S.Lewis

The love story between Lewis and his wife, and his subsequent grief after her death, is dramatized in the film "Shadowlands", starring Anthony Hopkins as Lewis and Debra Winger as Joy.