Lift Up Your Hearts!

Here are four poems that struck me in particular from a book of C. S. Lewis' collected poems.

Irresponsible actions have consequences.

Pan’s Purge

I dreamt that all the planning of peremptory humanity 
Had crushed Nature finally beneath the foot of Man; 
Birth-control and merriment, Earth completely sterilized, 
Bungalow and fun-fair, had fulfilled our Plan; 
But the lion and the unicorn were sighing at the funeral, 
Crying at the funeral 
Sobbing at the funeral of the god Pan.

And the elephant was crying. The pelican in his piety 
Struck his feathered bosom till the blood ran, 
And howling at humanity the owl and iguanodon, 
The bittern and the buffalo, their dirge began, 
But dangerously, suddenly, a strange ecstatic shuddering 
A change that set me shuddering 
Through all the wailful noises of the beasts ran.

No longer were they sorrowful, but stronger and more horrible, 
It had only been a rumour of the death of Pan. 
The scorpions and the mantichores and corpulent tarantulas 
Were closing in around me, hissing, Long Live Pan! 
And forth with rage unlimited the North Wind drew his scimitar 
In wrath with ringing scimitar 
He came, with sleet and shipwreck, for the doom of Man.

And now, descending, ravening, loud and large, the avalanche, 
And after it the earthquake, was loosed upon Man.
Towering and cloven-hoofed, the power of Pan came over us, 
Stamped, bit, tore, broke. It was the end of Man; 
Except where saints and savages were kept from his ravaging, 
And crept out when the ravaging 
Was ended, on an empty earth. The new world began.

A small race — a smiling heaven — all round the silences 
Returned; there was comfort for corrected Man. 
Flowered turf had swallowed up the towered cities; following 
His flocks and herds where nameless, untainted rivers ran, 
Leisurely he pondered, at his pleasure wandering, 
Measurelessly wandering... 
Clear, on the huge pastures, the young voice of Man.

Shades of the Irish Rovers!

The Late Passenger

The sky was low, the sounding rain was falling dense and dark,
And Noah’s sons were standing at the window of the Ark.

The beasts were in, but Japhet said, “I see one creature more
Belated and unmated there comes knocking at the door.”

“Well, let him knock or let him drown,” said Ham, “or learn to swim.
We’re overcrowded as it is; we’ve got no room for him.”

“And yet it knocks, how terribly it knocks,” said Shem. “Its feet
Are hard as horn—but oh the air that comes from it is sweet.”

“Now hush!” said Ham, “You’ll waken Dad, and once he comes to see
What’s at the door, it’s sure to mean more work for you and me.”

Noah’s voice came roaring from the darkness down below,
“Some animal is knocking. Let it in before we go.”

Ham shouted back, and savagely he nudged the other two,
“That’s only Japhet knocking down a brad-nail in his shoe.”

Said Noah, “Boys, I hear a noise that’s like a horse’s hoof.”
Said Ham, “Why, that’s the dreadful rain that drums upon the roof.”

Noah tumbled up on deck and out he put his head;
His face went grey, his knees were loosed, he tore his beard and said,

“Look, look! It would not wait. It turns away. It takes its flight.
Fine work you’ve made of it, my sons, between you all to-night!

"Even if I could outrun it now, it would not turn again
—Not now. Our great discourtesy has earned its high disdain.

"Oh noble and unmated beast, my sons were all unkind;
In such a night what stable and what manger will you find?

"Oh golden hoofs, oh cataracts of mane, oh nostrils wide
With indignation! Oh the neck wave-arched, the lovely pride!

"Oh long shall be the furrows ploughed upon the hearts of men
Before it comes to stable and to manger once again,

"And dark and crooked all the roads in which our race will walk,
And shrivelled all their manhood like a flower with broken stalk,

"And all the world, oh Ham, may curse the hour when you were born;
Because of you the Ark must sail without the Unicorn.”

It's presented as a poem, but to anyone familiar with the hymn, "Lead Us, Heavenly Father, Lead Us" it's a song that sings itself.

Evolutionary Hymn

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, in the present,
Joy or sorrow, what are they
While there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
"Goodness = what comes next."
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

On then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present
Standards, though it may well be).

And finally,

The Apologist's Evening Prayer

From all my lame defeats and oh! much more
From all the victories that I seemed to score;
From cleverness shot forth on Thy behalf
At which, while angels weep, the audience laugh;
From all my proofs of Thy divinity,
Thou, who wouldst give no sign, deliver me.

Thoughts are but coins. Let me not trust, instead
Of Thee, their thin-worn image of Thy head.
From all my thoughts, even from my thoughts of Thee,
O thou fair Silence, fall, and set me free.
Lord of the narrow gate and the needle’s eye,
Take from me all my trumpery lest I die.