by C. S. Lewis
The young leaves, where the palace walls showed pale
With chilly stone: but far above the green,
Springing like cliffs in air, the towers were seen,
Making more quiet yet the quiet dawn.
Thither he came. He reached the open lawn.
8
No bird was moving here. Against the wall
Out of the unscythed grass the nettle grew.
The doors stood open wide, but no footfall
Rang in the colonnades. Whispering through
Arches and hollow halls the light wind blew . . .
His awe returned. He whistled—then, no more,
It’s better to plunge in by the first door.
9
But then the vastness threw him into doubt.
Was this the door that he had found last night?
Or that, beneath the tower? Had he come out
This side at all? As the first snow falls light
With following rain before the year grows white,
So the first, dim foreboding touched his mind,
Gently as yet, and easily thrust behind.
10
And with it came the thought, ‘I do not know
Her name—no, nor her face.’ But still his mood
Ran blithely as he felt the morning blow
About him, and the earth-smell in the wood
Seemed waking for long hours that must be good
Here, in the unfettered lands, that knew no cause
For grudging—out of reach of the old laws.
11
He hastened to one entry. Up the stair,
Beneath the pillared porch, without delay,
He ran—then halted suddenly: for there
Across the quiet threshold something lay,
A bundle, a dark mass that barred the way.
He looked again, and lo, the formless pile
Under his eyes was moving all the while.
12
And it had hands, pale hands of wrinkled flesh,
Puckered and gnarled with vast antiquity,
That moved. He eyed the sprawling thing afresh,
And bit by bit (so faces come to be
In the red coal) yet surely, he could see
That the swathed hugeness was uncleanly human,
A living thing, the likeness of a woman.
13
In the centre a draped hummock marked the head;
Thence flowed the broader lines with curve and fold
Spreading as oak roots do. You would have said
A man could hide among them and grow old
In finding a way out. Breast manifold
As of the Ephesian Artemis might be
Under that robe. The face he did not see.
14
And all his being answered, ‘Not that way!’
Never a word he spoke. Stealthily creeping
Back from the door he drew. Quick! No delay!
Quick, quick, but very quiet!—backward peeping
Till fairly out of sight. Then shouting, leaping,
Shaking himself, he ran—as puppies do
From bathing—till that door was out of view.
15
Another gate—and empty. In he went
And found a courtyard open to the sky,
Amidst it dripped a fountain. Heavy scent
Of flowers was here; the foxglove standing high
Sheltered the whining wasp. With hasty eye
He travelled round the walls. One doorway led
Within: one showed a further court ahead.
16
He ran up to the first—a hungry lover,
And not yet taught to endure, not blunted yet,
But weary of long waiting to discover
That loved one’s face. Before his foot was set
On the first stair, he felt the sudden sweat
Cold on his sides. That sprawling mass in view,
That shape—the horror of heaviness—here too.
17
He fell back from the porch. Not yet—not yet—
There must be other ways where he would meet
No watcher in the door. He would not let
The fear rise, nor hope falter, nor defeat
Be entered in his thoughts. A sultry heat
Seemed to have filled the day. His breath came short,
And he passed on into that inner court.
18
And (like a dream) the sight he feared to find
Was waiting here. Then cloister, path and square
He hastened through: down paths that ended blind,
Traced and retraced his steps. The thing sat there
In every door, still watching, everywhere,
Behind, ahead, all round—So! Steady now,
Lest panic comes. He stopped. He wiped his brow.
19
But, as he strove to rally, came the thought
That he had dreamed of such a place before
—Knew how it all would end. He must be caught
Early or late. No good! But all the more
He raged with passionate will that overbore
That knowledge: and cried out, and beat his head,
Raving, upon the senseless walls, and said:
20
‘Where? Where? Dear, look once out. Give but one sign.
It’s I, I, Dymer. Are you chained and hidden?
What have they done to her? Loose her! She is mine.
Through stone and iron, haunted and hag-ridden,
I’ll come to you—no stranger, nor unbidden,
It’s I. Don’t fear them. Shout above them all.
Can you not hear? I’ll follow at your call.’
21
From every arch the echo of his cry
Returned. Then all was silent, and he knew
There was no other way. He must pass by
That horror: tread her down, force his way through,
Or die upon the threshold. And this too
Had all been in a dream. He felt his heart
Beating as if his throat would burst apart.
22
There was no other way. He stood a space
And pondered it. Then, gathering up his will,
He went to the next door. The pillared place
Beneath the porch was dark. The air was still,
Moss on the steps. He felt her presence fill
The threshold with dull life. Here too was she.
This time he raised his eyes and dared to see.
23
Pah! Only an old woman! . . . but the size,
The old, old matriarchal dreadfulness,
Immovable, intolerable . . . the eyes
Hidden, the hidden head, the winding dress,
Corpselike . . . The weight of the brute that seemed to press
Upon his heart and breathing. Then he heard
His own voice, strange and humbled, take the word.
24
‘Good Mother, let me pass. I have a friend
To look for in this house. I slept the night
And feasted here—it was my journey’s end,
—I found it by the music and the light,
And no one kept the doors, and I did right
To enter—did I not? Now, Mother, pray,
Let me pass in . . . good Mother, give me way.’
25
The woman answered nothing: but he saw
The hands, like crabs, still wandering on her knee.
‘Mother, if I have broken any law,
I’ll ask a pardon once: then let it be,
—Once is enough—and leave the passage free.
I am in haste. And though it were a sin
By all the laws you have, I must go in.’
26
Courage was rising in him now. He said,
‘Out of my path, old woman. For this cause
I am new born, new freed, and here new wed,
&n
bsp; That I might be the breaker of bad laws.
The frost of old forbiddings breaks and thaws
Wherever my feet fall. I bring to birth
Under its crust the green, ungrudging earth.’
27
He had started, bowing low: but now he stood
Stretched to his height. His own voice in his breast
Made misery pompous, firing all his blood.
‘Enough,’ he cried. ‘Give place. You shall not wrest
My love from me. I journey on a quest
You cannot understand, whose strength shall bear me
Through fire and earth. A bogy will not scare me.
28
‘I am the sword of spring; I am the truth.
Old night, put out your stars, the dawn is here,
The sleeper’s wakening, and the wings of youth.
With crumbling veneration and cowed fear
I make no truce. My loved one, live and dear,
Waits for me. Let me in! I fled the City,
Shall I fear you or . . . Mother, ah, for pity.’
29
For his high mood fell shattered. Like a man
Unnerved, in bayonet-fighting, in the thick,
—Full of red rum and cheers when he began,
Now, in a dream, muttering: ‘I’ve not the trick.
It’s no good. I’m no good. They’re all too quick.
There! Look there! Look at that!’—so Dymer stood,
Suddenly drained of hope. It was no good.
30
He pleaded then. Shame beneath shame. ‘Forgive.
It may be there are powers I cannot break.
If you are of them, speak. Speak. Let me live.
I ask so small a thing. I beg. I make
My body a living prayer whose force would shake
The mountains. I’ll recant—confess my sin—
But this once let me pass. I must go in.
31
‘Yield but one inch, once only from your law;
Set any price—I will give all, obey
All else but this, hold your least word in awe,
Give you no cause for anger from this day.
Answer! The least things living when they pray
As I pray now bear witness. They speak true
Against God. Answer! Mother, let me through.’
32
Then when he heard no answer, mad with fear
And with desire, too strained with both to know
What he desired or feared, yet staggering near,
He forced himself towards her and bent low
For grappling. Then came darkness. Then a blow
Fell on his heart, he thought. There came a blank
Of all things. As the dead sink, down he sank.
33
The first big drops are rattling on the trees,
The sky is copper dark, low thunder pealing.
See Dymer with drooped head and knocking knees
Comes from the porch. Then slowly, drunkly reeling,
Blind, beaten, broken, past desire of healing,
Past knowledge of his misery, he goes on
Under the first dark trees and now is gone.
CANTO IV
1
First came the peal that split the heavens apart
Straight overhead. Then silence. Then the rain;
Twelve miles of downward water like one dart,
And in one leap were launched along the plain,
To break the budding flower and flood the grain,
And keep with dripping sound an undersong
Amid the wheeling thunder all night long.
2
He put his hands before his face. He stooped,
Blind with his hair. The loud drops’ grim tattoo
Beat him to earth. Like summer grass he drooped,
Amazed, while sheeted lightning large and blue
Blinked wide and pricked the quivering eyeball through.
Then, scrambling to his feet, with downward head
He fought into the tempest as chance led.
3
The wood was mad. Soughing of branch and straining
Was there: drumming of water. Light was none,
Nor knowledge of himself. The trees’ complaining
And his own throbbing heart seemed mixed in one,
One sense of bitter loss and beauty undone;
All else was blur and chaos and rain-stream
And noise and the confusion of a dream.
4
Aha! . . . Earth hates a miserable man:
Against him even the clouds and winds conspire.
Heaven’s voice smote Dymer’s ear-drum as he ran,
Its red throat plagued the dark with corded fire
—Barbed flame, coiled flame that ran like living wire
Charged with disastrous current, left and right
About his path, hell-blue or staring white.
5
Stab! Stab! Blast all at once. What’s he to fear?
Look there—that cedar shrivelling in swift blight
Even where he stood! And there—ah, that came near!
Oh, if some shaft would break his soul outright,
What ease so to unload and scatter quite
On the darkness this wild beating in his skull
Too burning to endure, too tense and full.
6
All lost: and driven away: even her name
Unknown. O fool, to have wasted for a kiss
Time when they could have talked! An angry shame
Was in him. He had worshipt earth, and this
—The venomed clouds fire spitting from the abyss,
This was the truth indeed, the world’s intent
Unmasked and naked now, the thing it meant.
7
The storm lay on the forest a great time
—Wheeled in its thundery circuit, turned, returned.
Still through the dead-leaved darkness, through the slime
Of standing pools and slots of clay storm-churned
Went Dymer. Still the knotty lightning burned
Along black air. He heard the unbroken sound
Of water rising in the hollower ground.
8
He cursed it in his madness, flung it back,
Sorrow as wild as young men’s sorrows are,
Till, after midnight, when the tempest’s track
Drew off, between two clouds appeared one star.
Then his mood changed. And this was heavier far,
When bit by bit, rarer and still more rare,
The weakening thunder ceased from the cleansed air;
9
When the leaves began to drip with dying rain
And trees showed black against the glimmering sky,
When the night-birds flapped out and called again
Above him: when the silence cool and shy
Came stealing to its own, and streams ran by
Now audible amid the rustling wood
—Oh, then came the worst hour for flesh and blood.
10
It was no nightmare now with fiery stream
Too horrible to last, able to blend
Itself and all things in one hurrying dream;
It was the waking world that will not end
Because hearts break, that is not foe nor friend,
Where sane and settled knowledge first appears
Of work-day desolation, with no tears.
11
He halted then, footsore, weary to death,
And heard his heart beating in solitude,
When suddenly the sound of sharpest breath
Indrawn with pain and the raw smell of blood
Surprised his sense. Near by to where he stood
Came a long whimpering moan—a broken word,
A rustle of leaves where some live body stirred.
12
He groped towards the sound. ‘What, brothe
r, brother,
Who groaned?’—‘I’m hit. I’m finished. Let me be.’
—‘Put out your hand, then. Reach me. No, the other.’
—‘Don’t touch. Fool! Damn you! Leave me.’—‘I can’t see.
Where are you?’ Then more groans. ‘They’ve done for me.
I’ve no hands. Don’t come near me. No, but stay,
Don’t leave me . . . O my God! Is it near day?’
13
—‘Soon now, a little longer. Can you sleep?
I’ll watch for you.’—‘Sleep, is it? That’s ahead,
But none till then. Listen: I’ve bled too deep
To last out till the morning. I’ll be dead
Within the hour—sleep then. I’ve heard it said
They don’t mind at the last, but this is Hell.
If I’d the strength—I have such things to tell.’
14
All trembling in the dark and sweated over
Like a man reared in peace, unused to pain,
Sat Dymer near him in the lightless cover,
Afraid to touch and shamefaced to refrain.
Then bit by bit and often checked again
With agony the voice told on. (The place
Was dark, that neither saw the other’s face.)
15
‘There is a City which men call in scorn
The Perfect City—eastward of this wood—
You’ve heard about the place. There I was born.
I’m one of them, their work. Their sober mood,
The ordered life, the laws, are in my blood
—A life . . . well, less than happy, something more
Than the red greed and lusts that went before.
16
‘All in one day, one man and at one blow
Brought ruin on us all. There was a boy
—Blue eyes, large limbs, were all he had to show,
You need no greater prophets to destroy.
He seemed a man asleep. Sorrow and joy
Had passed him by—the dreamiest, safest man,
The most obscure, until this curse began.
17
‘Then—how or why it was, I cannot say—
This Dymer, this fool baby pink-and-white,
Went mad beneath his quiet face. One day,
With nothing said, he rose and laughed outright
Before his master: then, in all our sight,
Even where we sat to watch, he struck him dead
And screamed with laughter once again and fled.
18
‘Lord! how it all comes back. How still the place is,
And he there lying dead . . . only the sound
Of a bluebottle buzzing . . . sharpened faces
Strained, gaping from the benches all around . . .
The dead man hunched and quiet with no wound,
And minute after minute terror creeping
With dreadful hopes to set the wild heart leaping.
