The Hermit's Song

Wed 23 Apr 2003 22:10:28

My heart is empty. All the fountains that should run
    With longing are in me
Dried up. In all the countryside there is not one
    That drips to find the sea.
I have no care for anything thy love can grant
    Except the moment's vain
And hardly noticed filling of the moment's want
   And to be free from pain.
Oh, thou that art unwearying, that dost neither sleep
   Nor slumber, who didst take
All care for Lazarus in the careless tomb, oh keep
   Watch for me till I wake.
If thou think for me what I cannot think, if thou
    Desire for me what I
Cannot desire, my soul's interior Form, though now
    Deep-buried, will not die
No more than the insensible dropp'd seed which grows
    Through winter ripe for birth
Because, while it forgets, the heavens remembering throws
    Sweet influence still on earth,
Because the heaven, moved moth-like by thy beauty, goes
    Still turning around the earth.

- from C.S. Lewis's The Pilgrim's Regress