(no subject)

[vriad_lee]

As the Ruin Falls by C S Lewis


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.

Comments

[duende.livejournal.com]

She is the bridge. I know (biographically) the woman he found late in life died from cancer, after they were together for only a few years.

This is a beautiful poem, thanks for posting it

[vriad-lee.livejournal.com]

yes, now it makes more sense, thanks

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I'd say it's his heart that's the bridge, and that's what's breaking. And he's thanking her for making that able to have happened.

[vriad-lee.livejournal.com]

then why

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains

??

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

He was "self-imprisoned" and in "exile" before meeting her. He's thanking her for making him see what life could be, even as his heart's breaking, due to her dying of cancer, as mentioned above. It's the worst of pain, the dying of someone you love, and he's thanking her for feeling it.