This poem was written in 1924, before he was converted and followed Jesus. However, in this somewhat pessimistic at the conclusion, there are echoes of Narnia which will appear in later days - when Lewis will discover the beauty of his Lord Jesus Christ and the love of Joy Davidman
Today was all unlike another day.
The long waves of my sleep near morning broke
On happier beaches, tumbling lighted spray
Of soft dreams filled with promise. As I woke,
Like a huge bird, Joy with the feathery stroke
Of strange wings brushed me over. Sweeter air
Came never from dawn's heart. The misty smoke
Cooled it upon the hills. It touched the lair
Of each wild thing and woke the wet flowers everywhere.
I looked from eastward window,. In my thought
I boasted that this mood could never die,
'Here the new life begins. My quarry is caught.
Here is my kingdom won, and here am I.'
Shape after shape the fleeted clouds swam by,
Snow-pinnacled or flushed with early red.
The standing pools, newly married to the sky,
Shone on the moors. All earth, before me spread,
Called to my feet to wander wither the wind led.
A crooked land of ever-changing lines
And mountain labyrinths hard to understand,
A land of sudden gorse and slanted pines
And far withdrawn blue valleys - a clean land
Washed with the rains, decked with the flowery hands
Of northern spring, cooled with the streams that wind
Through moss and primrose down to the sea sand.
Like Christian when his burden dropt behind,
I was set free. Pure colour purified my mind.
We do not know the language Beauty speaks,
She has no answer to our questioning,
And ease to pain and truth to one who seeks
I know she never brought and cannot bring.
But, if she wakes a moment, we must fling
Doubt at her feet, not answered, yet allayed.
She beats down wisdom suddenly. We cling
Fast to her flying skirts and she will fade,
Even at the kiss of welcome, into deepest shade.
We have no gift but tears for sacrifice.
She will not stay. But those were bitterer tears
If time's recording measure could suffice
To count the endless flash when she appears.
It is not to be weighed with empty years
And hours - they are consumed in that swift birth.
And I - I had forgotten the dull fears,
The waiting and the days that have no worth
When I returned, alone, through a grey evening earth.
And then I know that this was all gone over.
I shall not live like this another day.
To-morrow I'll go wandering, a poor lover
Of earth, rejected, outcast in every way,
And see not, hear not. Rapture will not stay
Longer than this, lest mortals grow divine
And old laws change too much. The sensitive ray
Of Beauty, her creative vision fine,
Pass. I am hers, but she will not again be mind.
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