Classic Audiobook Collection - Spirits in Bondage by C. S. Lewis ~ Full Audiobook [poetry]

Episode Date: October 5, 2022

Spirits in Bondage by C. S. Lewis audiobook. Genre: poetry Spirits in Bondage is C.S. Lewis’s first book and the first of his works to be available in the public domain. It was released in 1919 under the pseudonym of Clive Hamilton and was written in a period of darker thought for C.S. Lewis than was later evidenced in his Christian apologist writings. The darkness of the verse is most evident in Part One (The Prison House), begins to change in the short transitional Part Two (Hesitation) and attains a more hopeful tone in the final Part Three (Escape). Yet a dreamy effect, influenced by Celtic and Druid mythology, persists throughout. Spirits in Bondage consists of forty poems that provide an intriguing insight into the youthful heart of C.S. Lewis and occasionally provides interesting lyrical foreshadowing of some of the landscapes portrayed in his famous Chronicles of Narnia series. For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 1 (00:41:18) Chapter 2 (00:48:17) Chapter 3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Spirits in Bondage A Cycle of Lyrics by Clive Hamilton. Prologue As of old Phoenician men to the ten aisles sailing, straight against the sunset and the edges of the earth, chaunted loud above the storm and the strange seas wailing, legends of their people, and the land that gave them birth. Sang aloud to Bale Pior, sang unto the horned maiden, sang how they should come again with the brethren treasure laden,

sang of all the pride and glory of their hearty enterprise, how they found the outer islands where the unknown stars arise. And the rowers down below, rowing hard as they could row, toiling at the stroke and feather through the wet and weary weather, even they forgot their burden in the measure of a song, and the merchants and the masters and the bondsmen altogether, dreaming of the wondrous islands brought the gallant ship along so in mighty deeps alone on the chainless breezes blown in my coracle of verses i will sing of lands unknown flying from the scarlet city where a lord that knows no pity mocks the broken people prey in round his iron throne sing about the hidden country fresh and full of quiet green sailing overseas uncharted

to a port that none has seen part one the prison house poem one Satan speaks I am nature the mighty mother I am the law ye have none other I am the flower and the dewdrop fresh I am the lust in your itching flesh I am the battles filth and strain I am the widow's empty pain I am the sea to smother your breath I am the bomb the falling death I am the fact and the crushing reason to thwart your fantasies newborn treason

I am the spider making her net I am the beast with jaws blood wet I am a wolf that follows the sun and I will catch him your day be done. Poem two. French nocturn. Monchie le Prue. Long leagues on either hand the trenches spread.

And all is still. Now even this gross line drinks in the frosty silence is divine. The pale green moon is riding overhead. The jaws of a sacked village, stark, and grim. Out on the ridge have swallowed up the sun, and in one angry streak his blood has run, to left and right along the horizon dim. There comes a buzzing plain, and now it seems, flies straight into the moon, low where he steers, across the pallid globe and surely nears,

in that white land some harbor of dear dreams. False mocking fancy, Once I too could dream, who now can only see with vulgar eye That he's no nearer to the moon than I, And she's a stone that catches the sun's beam. What call have I to dream of anything? I am a wolf back to the world again. And speech of fellow brutes that once were men. Our throats can bark for slaughter, cannot sing.

Poem three, The Satter When the flowery hands of spring, Forth their woodland riches fling, Through the meadows through the valleys Goes the sadder carolling. From the mountain and the moor, Forest green and ocean shore, All the fairy kin he rallies,

Making music evermore. See the shaggy pelt doth grow On his twisted shanks below, And his dreadful feet are cloven, though his brow be white as snow. Though his brow be clear and white, and beneath it fancies bright, wisdom and high thoughts are woven,

and the music's of delight. Though his temples too be fair, yet two horns are growing there, bursting forth the part asunder all the riches of his hair. Fairy maidens he may meet, fly the horns and cloven feet, but his sad brown eyes with wonder,

Seeing stay from their retreat. Poem four. Victory. Roland is dead. Cahoulin's crest is low. The battered warrior waists and turns to rust. And Helen's eyes and Isle's lips are dust, and dust the shoulders and the breasts of snow.

The fairy people from our woods are gone. No dryheads have I found in all our trees. No trite and blood. his horn about our seas, and Arthur sleeps far hence in Avalon. The ancient songs they wither as the grass, and waste as doth a garment waxen old, all poets have been fools who thought to mold, a monument more durable than brass. For these decay, but not for that decays, the yearning high, rebellious spirit of man, that never rested yet since life began, from striving with red nature and her ways.

Now, in the filth of war, the bearsark shout, Of battle it is vexed, and yet so oft, Out of the deeps of old it rose aloft, That they who watch the ages may not doubt. Though often bruised, oft broken by the rod, Yet, like the phoenix from each fiery bed, Higher the stricken spirit lifts its head, And higher till the beast become a beast.

God. Poem five. Irish nocturn. Now the gray mist comes creeping up from the waste ocean's weedy strand, and fills the valley as a cup, if filled of evil drink in a wizard's hand. And the trees fade out of sight, like dreary ghosts unhealthily, into the damp, pale night, till you almost think that a clearer eye could see, some shape come up. of a demon seeking apart, his meat as Grendel sought in heart, the thanes is set by the wintry log, Grendel or the shadowy mass, a belor or the man with the face of clay, the grey, grey Walker who used to pass, over the rock arch nightly to his prey. But here at the dumb, slow stream where the willows hang, with never a wind to blow the mists apart.

Bitter and bitter it is for thee, oh my heart, looking upon this land where poets sang, thus with the dreary shroud, unwholesome over it spread, and knowing the fog in the cloud in her people's heart and head, even as it lies forever upon her coasts, making them dim and dreamy lest her son should ever arise and remember all their boasts. For I know that the colorless skies and the blurred horizons breed, lonely desire and many words and brooding and never a deed. Poem six, Spooks.

Last night I dreamed that I was come again, unto the house where my beloved dwells, after long years of wandering and pain. And I stood out beneath me. the drenching rain, and all the street was bare and black with night, but in my true love's house was warmth and light. Yet I could not draw near nor enter in, and long I wondered if some secret sin, or old, unhappy anger held me fast.

Till suddenly it came into my head that I was killed long since and lying dead, only a homeless wraith that way had passed. So thus I found my true love's house again, and stood unseen amid the winter night, and the lamp burned within a rosy light, and the wet street was shining in the rain. Poem seven, Apology. If men should ask, Despina, why I tell of nothing glad nor noble in my verse to lighten hearts beneath this present curse and build a heaven of dreams in real hell. Go you to them and speak among them thus. There was no greater grief than to recall, down in the rotting grave where the lithu worms crawl, green fields above that smiled so sweet to us. Is it good to tell old tales of Troinavant, or praises of dead heroes tried and sage, or sing the

of Unforgotten Age, Brinhild and Mev and Virgin Bratamont. How should I sing of them? Can it be good? To think of glory now when all is done, and all our labor underneath the sun, has brought us this, and not the thing we would? All these were rosy visions of the night, the loveliness and wisdom feigned of old. But now we wake. The east is pale and cold.

No hope is in the dawn, and no delight. Poem eight. Ode for New Year's Day. Woe unto you, ye sons of pain, that are this day in earth. Now cry for all your torment, now curse your hour of birth, and the fathers who beget you to a portion nothing worth. And thou my own beloved, for as brave as ere thou art, Bow down thine head, Despina, clasped thy pale arms over it.

Lie low with fast-closed eyelids, clenched teeth, enduring heart. For sorrow on sorrow is coming, wherein all flesh has part. The sky above is sickening, the clouds of God's hate cover it. Body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought, till the pain and noisy terror that these first years have wrought seem but the soft arising and prelude of the storm, that fiercer still and heavier with sharper lightnings fraught shall pour red wrath upon us over a world deform.

Thrice happy, O Despina, were the men who were alive, in the great age and the golden age, when still the cycle ran, on upward curve and easily, for them both made and man, and beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive. But now one age is ending, and God calls home the stars, and loses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back amid the death of nations and points a downward track,

and madness has come over us, and great and little wars. He has not left one valley, one aisle of fresh and green, Where old friends could forgather amid the howling wreck. It's vainly we are praying, we cannot, cannot check, The power who slays and puts aside the beauty that has been. It's truth, they tell Despina, none hears the hearts complaining, For nature will not pity, nor the red god lend an ear. Yet I too have been mad in the hour of bitter painting,

and lifted up my voice to God, thinking that he could hear, the curse wherewith I cursed him, because the good was dead. But lo, I am grown wiser, knowing that our own hearts, have made a phantom called the good, while a few years have sped, over a little planet, and what should the great Lord know of it, who tosses the dust of chaos, and gives the sons their parts?

Hither and thither he moves them, for an hour we see the show of it, only a little hour, and the life of the race is done. And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun, and works his own fierce pleasure, all things he shall fulfill,

and, oh, my poor Despina, do you think he ever hears, the wail of hearts he has broken, the sound of human ill. He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears, and how could it all go on, love, if he knew of laughter and tears?

Ah, sweet, if a man could cheat him, if you could flee away, into some other country beyond the rosy west, to hide in the deep forest and be forever at rest, from the rankling hate of God and the outworn world's decay. Poem nine Night

After the fret and failure of this day And weariness of thought, O Mother Knight, Come with soft kiss to soothe our caraway, And all our little tumults set to write. Most pitiful of all death's kindred fare, riding above us through the curtained air, On thy dust car, thou scatterest to the earth,

sweet dreams and drowsy charms of tender might, and lovers dear delight before tomorrow's birth. Thus art thou want thy quiet lands to leave, and pillared courts beyond the Milky Way, wherein thou tarrious all our solar day, while unsubstantial dreams before thee weave, a foamy dance and fluttering fancies play, about thy palace and the silver ray,

Of some far Mooney Globe, But when the hour, The long-expected comes, The ivory gates open on noiseless hinge before thy bower, Unbidden, and the jeweled chariot waits, With magic steeds, Thou from the fronting rim, Bending to urge them whilst thy see dark hair,

Falls and ambrosial ripples over each limb, With beautiful pale arms, untrammeled, bear. For horsemanship to those twin chargers fleet, Dost give full rain across the fires a glow, In the wide floor of heaven from off their feet, scattering the powdery star-dust as they go. Come swiftly down the sky, O Lady Knight, Fall through the shadow country, O most kind,

Shake out thy strands of gentle dreams and light. For chains wherewith thou still art used to bind, with tenderest love of careful leach's art, the bruised and weary heart, in slumber blind. Poem ten To sleep, I will find out a place for thee, O sleep, a hidden wood among the hilltops green, full of soft streams and little winds that creep, the murmuring boughs between. A hollow cup above the ocean placed, where nothing rough, nor loud nor harsh shall be, but woodland light and shadow interlaced, and summer sky and sea.

There in the fragrant twilight I will raise, a secret altar of the rich sea sod, whereat to offer sacrifice and praise unto my lonely God. Do sacrifice of his own drowsy flowers, the deadening poppies in an ocean shell, round which through all Forgotten days and hours, the great seas wove their spell. So may he send me dreams of dear delight, And draughts of cool oblivion quenching pain, And sweet half-wakeful moments in the night, To hear the falling rain.

And when he meets me at the dusk of day, To call me home forever, this I ask, That he may lead me friendly on that way, and wear no frightful mask. Poem 11. In Prison I cried out for the pain of man, I cried out for my bitter wrath,

against the hopeless life that ran, forever in a circling path, from death to death since all began. Till on a summer night, I lost my way in the pale starlight, and saw our planet far and small, through endless depths of nothing fall, a lonely pinprick spark of light

upon the wide unfolding night with leagues on leagues of stars above it and powdered dust of stars below. Dead things that neither hate nor love it, not even their own loveliness can know, being but cosmic dust and dead. And if some tears be shed, some evil God have power,

some crown of sorrow sit upon a little world for a little hour. Who shall remember? Who shall care for it? Poem 12. De Profundis Come let us curse our master, ear we die, For all our hopes and endless ruin lie. The good is dead, let us curse God most high.

Four thousand years of toil and hope and thought, wherein man labored upward and still wrought new worlds and better thou hast made as not we built us joyful cities strong and fair knowledge we sought and gathered wisdom rare and all this time you laughed upon our care And suddenly the earth grew black with wrong. Our hope was crushed and silenced was our song. The heaven grew loud with weeping, thou art strong. Come then and curse the Lord over the earth. Gross darkness falls and evil was our birth, and our few happy days of little worth.

Even if it be not all a dream in vain, the ancient hope that still will rise again, of a just god that cares for earthly pain yet far away beyond our laboring night he wanders in the depths of endless light singing alone his musics of delight Only the far-spent echo of his song, our dungeons and deep cells can smite along, and thou art nearer, thou art very strong. O universal strength, I know it well, it is but froth of folly to rebel, for thou art lord and hast the keys of hell. Yet I will not bow down to thee, nor love thee, for looking in my own heart I can prove thee, know this frail bruised being is above thee. Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right,

our mercy and long-seeking of the light, shall we change these for thy relentless might? Laugh then and slay, shatter all things of worth, heap torment still on torment for thy mirth. Thou art not lord while there are men on earth. Poem 13 Satan speaks I am the Lord your God, even he that made,

Material things and all these signs arrayed Above you and have set beneath the race of mankind Who forget their father's face And even while they drink my light of day Dream of some other gods and disobey My warnings and despise my holy laws even though their sin shall slay them for which cause. Dreams dreamed in vain, a never-filled desire,

an in close flesh a spiritual fire, a thirst for good their kind shall not attain, a backward cleaving to the beast again. A loathing for the life that I have given, a haunted, twisted soul forever riven, between their will and mine, Such lot I give, White, still am I despite, the vermin live.

They hate my world, Then let that other God, Come from the outer space's glory shod, And from this castle I have built on night, Steal forth my own thoughts, children, into light, If such an one there be. But far away, he walks the airy fields of endless day, And my rebellious sons have called him long,

and vainly called my order still is strong and like to me nor second none i know whither the mammoth went this creature too shall go poem fourteen the witch trapped amid the woods with guile they've led her bound in fetters vile to death a deadlier sorceress than any born for earth's distress since first the winter of the fleece born of the fleece born of the fleece born of the fleece home the Calcian witch to Greece, seven months with snare and gin, they've sought the maid or wise within the forest's labyrinthine shade. The lonely woodman half afraid, far off her ragged form has seen, sauntering down the alleys green, or crouched in godless prayer alone, at eve before a druid stone. But now the bitter chase is one. The quarry's cause. her magic's done. The bishops brought her strongest spell to knot with candle, book, and bell. With holy water splashed upon her, she goes to burning and dishonor, too deeply damned to feel her shame.

For, though beneath her hair of flame, her thoughtful head be lowly bowed, it droops for meditation proud, impenitent and pondering yet, things no memory can forget. wonders she has seen, brooding in the wildwood green, with holiness. For who can say, in what strange crew she loved to play, what demons or what gods of old, deep mysteries under her have told, at dead of night in worship bent, at ruined shrines magnificent, or how the quivering wills she sent, alone into the great alone, where all is loved and all is known, who now lifts up her maiden eyes and looks around with soft surprise upon the noisy crowded square, the city oaths that nod and stare, the bishop's court that gathers there, the faggots and the

blackened stake, where sinners die for justice's sake. Now she has set upon the pile, the mob grows still a little while, till low before the eager folk, up curls a thin blue line of smoke. Alas, the full-fed burgers cry, That evil loveliness must die. Poem 15 Dungeon Greats So piteously the lonely soul of man

Shudders before this universal plan So grievous is the burden and the pain So heavy weighs the long material chain from cause to cause, too merciless for hate, the nightmare march of unrelenting fate. I think that he must die thereof unless, ever and again across the dreariness, there came a sudden glimpse of spirit faces, a fragrant breath to tell of flowery places, and wider oceans breaking on the shore, from which the hearts of men are always sore. It lies beyond endeavor, neither prayer nor fasting nor much wisdom winneth there,

seeing how many prophets and wise men have sought for it and still returned again, with hope undone. But only the strange power of unsought beauty in some casual hour can build a bridge of light or sound or form to lead you out of all this strife and storm. When of some beauty we are grown apart, till from its very glory's midmost heart out leaps a sudden beam of larger light into our souls. All things are seen aright, amid the blinding pillar of its gold, seven times more true than what for truth we hold, in vulgar hours. The miracle is done, and for one little moment we are one, with the eternal stream of loveliness,

that flows so calm aloft from all distressed yet leaps and lives around us as a fire making us faint with over-strong desire to sport and swim forever in its deep only a moment oh but we shall keep our vision still one moment was enough we know we are not made of mortal stuff and we can bear all trials that come after the hate of men and the hate of men and the men and the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the world of the the fool's loud, bestial laughter, and nature's rule and cruelties unclean, for we have seen the glory. We have seen. Poem 16 The Philosopher Who shall be our prophet then, chosen from all the sons of men, to lead his fellows

on the way of hidden knowledge, delving deep, to nameless mysteries that keep their secret from the solar day? Or who shall pierce with sure I? This shifting veil of bittersweet, and find the real things that lie, beyond this turmoil which we greet, with such a wasted wealth of tears? Who shall cross over for us the bridge of fears, and pass into the country where the ancient mothers dwell? Is it an elder, bent and whore, who where the waste Atlantic's swell, On lonely beaches makes its roar, In his solitary tower, Through the long night hour by hour, Pours on old books with watery eye, When all his youth has passed him by, And folly is schooled, And love is dead, And frozen fancy laid abed, While in his veins the gradual blood Slackens to a merrish flood,

for he rejoiceth not in the ocean's might. Neither the sun giveth delight, nor the moon by night, shall call his feet to wander in the haunted forest lawn. He shall no more rise suddenly in the dawn, when mists are white and the dew lies pearly, cold and cold on every meadow, to take his joy of the season early, the opening flower and the westward shadow,

and scarcely can he dream of laughter and love they lie so many leaden years behind. Such eyes are dim and blind, and the sad aching head that nods above his monstrous books can never know the secret we would find. But let our seer be young and kind, and fresh and beautiful of show, and take an ear the lusty head

and rapture of his youth be dead. Here the gnawing peasant reason school him over deep in treason to the ancient highest state of his fancies principate that he may live a perfect hole, a mask of the eternal soul, and cross at last the shadowy bar

to where the ever living are. Poem 17 The Ocean Strand O'Leave the labouring roadways, of the town, the shifting faces and the changeful hue, of markets and broad echoing streets that drown, the heart's own silent music, though they too sing in their proper rhythm and still delight the friendly ear that loves warm humankind, yet it is good to leave them all behind, now when from lily dawn to purple night, summer is queen. Summer is queen in all the happy land.

Far, far away among the valleys green, Let us go forth and wander hand in hand, Beyond those solemn hills that we have seen, So often welcome home the falling sun, Into their cloudy peaks when day was done. Beyond them till we find the ocean strand, And hear the great waves run, With the waste song whose melodies I'd follow

And weary not for many a summer day, born of the vaulted breakers arching hollow before they flash and scatter into spray. On, if we should be weary of their play, then I would lead you further into land, where with their ragged walls the stately rocks shunt in smooth courts and paved with quiet sand to silence dedicate. The sea-god's flocks have rested here and mortal eyes have seen, by great adventure at the dead of noon, a lonely nereid, drowsing half a swoon, buried beneath her dark and dripping locks.

Poem 18 Noon Noon, and in the garden bower, the hot air quivers o'er the grass, The little lake is smooth as glass, And still so heavily the hour, Drags, that scarce the proudest, flower, pressed upon its burning bed, has strength to lift a languid head. Rows and fainting violet, by the water's margins set, swoon and sink as they were dead, though their weary leaves be fed, with the foam drops of the pool, where it trembles dark

and cool, wrinkled by the fountain spraying, o'er it. And the honey-bee hums'es' drowsy melody, and wanders in his coarse astraying through the sweet entangled glade with his golden mead o'er laden, where beneath the pleasant shade of the darkling boughs a maiden, milky limb and fiery tress, all its sweetest random laid, slumbers drunken with the excess of the noontide's loveliness. Poem 19

Milton read again in Surrey. Three golden months while Summerana stole, I have read your joyful tale another time, breathing more freely in that larger climb and learning wiserer to deserve the whole. Your spirit, master, has been close at hand, and guided me, still pointing treasures rare,

thick sown where I before saw nothing fair, and finding waters in the barren land. Barron once thought because my eyes were dim. Like one I am grown to whom the common field, and often wandered copes one morning yield, new pleasure suddenly, for over him, falls the weird spirit of unexplained delight, new mystery in every shady place, in every whispering tree a nameless grace, new rapture on the windy seaward height. So may she come to me, teaching me well, to see how, Savor all these sweets that lie to hand, in wood and laying about this pleasant land,

though it be not the land where I would dwell. Poem 20 Sonnet The stars come out, the fragrant shadows fall, About a dreaming garden still and sweet, I hear the unseen bats above me bleat, Among the ghostly moths their hunting call, And twinkling glow-worms all about me,

crawl. Now for a chamber dim, a pillow-meat, for slumbers deep as death, a faultless sheet, cool, white, and smooth. So may I reach the hall, with poppy strewn where sleep that is so dear, with magic sponge can wipe away an hour, or twelve, and make them not. Why not a year? Why could a man not loiter in that bower, until a thousand painless size? cycles wore, and then, what if it held him evermore? Poem 21 The Autumn Morning See, the pale autumn dawn, is faint upon the lawn,

That lies in powdered white, of hoar-frost dight, And now, from tree to tree, The ghostly mist we see, Hung like a silver pall to hallow all. It wreaths the burdened air, so strangely everywhere, that I could almost fear this silence drear, where no one songbird sings and dream that wizard things, mighty for hate or love, were close above.

White is the fog and fair, drifting through the middle air, in magic dances dread, over my head. Yet these should know me too, lover and bondman true, one that has honored one, Well, the mystic spell, of earth's most solemn hours, wherein the ancient powers, of dryad elf or fawn, or leprechaun, oft have their faces shown to me that walked alone, seashore or haunted fen, or mountain glen. Wherefore I will not fear to walk the woodland sear into this autumn day, far, far away. End of Part 1, The Prison House. This is a Libravox recording. All Libervox recordings are in the public domain.

For more information or to volunteer, please visitlibrovox.org. Recording made by Robert Garrison. For more information on this reader, visit Climer 53.com. Spirits in Bondage A Cycle of Lyrics by Clive Hamilton Part 2 Hesitation Poem 22

La Prenti Sorcier Suddenly there came to me The music of a mighty sea That on a bare and iron shore thundered with a deeper roar Than all the tides that leap and run With us below the real sun Because the place was far away,

above beyond our homely day, neighboring close the frozen climb, where out of all the woods of time, amid the frightful seraphim, the fierce cold eyes of Godhead gleam, revolving hate and misery, and wars and famines yet to be. And in my dreams I stood alone, upon a shelf of weedy stone, and saw before my shrinking eyes the dark enormous breakers rise, and hover and fall with deafening thunder of thwarted foam that echoed under the ledge through many a cavern drear with hollow sounds of wintry fear and through the waters waste and gray thick strown for many a league away out of the toiling sea arose many a face and form of those thin elemental people dear who live beyond our heavy sphere

And all at once from far and near, they all held out their arms to me, crying in their melody, leap in, leap in, and take thy fill, of all the cosmic good and ill, be as the living ones that know, enormous joy, enormous woe, pain beyond thought and fiery bliss, for all thy study hunted this, on wings of magic to arise, and wash from off thy filmed eyes, the cloud of cold mortality, to find the real life and be, as are the children of the deep. Be bold and dare the glorious leap, or to thy shame go, slink again, back to the narrow ways of men. So all these mocked me as I stood, striving to wake because I feared the flood. Poem 23

Alexandrines There is a house that most of all on earth I hate Though I have passed through many sorrows and have been In bloody fields, sad seas and countries desolate, Yet most I fear that empty house where the grass is green Grow in the silent court the gaping flags between and down the moss-grown paths and terrace no man treads, where the old, old weeds rise deep on the waste garden beds.

Like eyes of one long dead the empty windows stare, and I fear to cross the garden, I fear to linger there, for in that house I know a little silent room, where someone's always waiting, waiting in the gloom. to draw me with an evil eye and hold me fast, yet thither doom will drive me, and he will win at last. Poem 24 In praise of solid people,

Thank God there are solid folk, Who water flowers and roll the lawn, And sit and sew and talk and smoke, And snore all through the summer dawn, Who pass on troubled nights and days, full-fed and sleepily content, rejoicing in each other's praise, respectable and innocent? Who feel the things that all men feel, and think in well-worn grooves of thought, whose honest spirits never real, before man's mystery overwrought?

Yet not unfaithful nor unkind, with workday virtues surely stayed, theirs is the sane and humble mind, and dull affections undismayed. O happy people, I have seen, no verse yet written in your praise, and truth to tell the time as being, I would have scorned your easy ways. But now, through weariness and strife, I learn your worthiness indeed. The world is better for such life, as stout suburban people lead. Too often have I sat alone, when the wet night falls heavily, and fretting winds around me moan, And homeless longing vexes me, for lore that I shall never know, and visions none can hope to see,

till brooding works upon me so, a childish fear steals over me. I look around the empty room, the clock still ticking in its place, and all else silent as the tomb, till suddenly, I think, a face, grows from the darkness just beside. I turn, and lo! It fades away, and soon another phantom-tide of shifting dreams begins to play. And dusky galleys pass me sail, full-fraided on a fairy sea, I hear the silken merchant's hail across the ringing waves to me. Then suddenly, again, the room, familiar books about me piled, and I alone amid the gloom, by one more mocking dream beguiled. And still no neared to the light, and still no further from myself, alone and lost in clinging

night, the clock still ticking on the shelf. Then do I envy solid folk, who sit of evenings by the fire, after their work and and smoke and are not fretted by desire. End of Part 2. Hesitation. This is a Libravox recording. All Libravox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Libravox.org.

Recording made by Robert Garrison. For more information on this reader, visit Climer 53.com. Spirits in Bondage. A Cycle of Lyrics by Clive Hamilton. Part 3 The Escape Poem 25 Song of the Pilgrims O dwellers at the back of the North Wind, what have we done to you? How have we sinned? Wondering the earth from Orkney unto end? With many deaths our fellowship is thinned.

Our flesh is withered in the parching wind, wandering the earth from Orkney unto end. We have no rest. We cannot turn again, Back to the world in all her fruitless pain, Having once sought the land where ye remain. Some say ye are not, But our God we know,

That somewhere, somewhere past the northern snow, Waiting for us the Red Rose Gardens, blow. The red rose and the white rose gardens blow, in the green northern land to which we go. Surely the ways are long and the years are slow. We have forsaken all things sweet and fair. We have found nothing worth a moment's care, because the real flowers are blowing there. Land of the lotus fallen from the sun. Land of the lake from whence all rivers run. land where the hope of all our dreams is one shall we not somewhere see at close of day the green walls of that country far away and hear the music of her fountains play so long we have been wandering all this while by many of perilous sea and drifting-isle we scarce shall dare to look thereon and smile

yea when we are drawing very near to thee and when at last the ivory port we see our hearts will faint with mere felicity but we shall wake again in gardens bright of green and gold for infinite delight sleeping beneath the solemn mountains white while from the flowery copses still unseen sing out the crooning birds that ne'er have been touched by the hand of winter fror and lean and ever-living queens that grow not old and poets wise in robes of fairy gold whisper a wild sweet song that first was told ere god sat down to make the milky way and in those gardens we shall sloth leap in play, forever and forever and a day. Ah, dwellers at the back of the North Wind, what have we done to you, how have we sinned, that ye should hide beyond the northern wind? Land of the lotus fallen from the sun, when shall your hidden flowery veils be one, and all the travail of our way be done? Very far we have searched, we have even seen, the Scythian waste that bears no soft nor green,

And near the hideous pass our feet have been. We have heard sirens singing all night long, Beneath the unknown stars their lonely song, In friendless seas beyond the pillars strong. Nor by the dragon daughter of Hippocras, Nor the veil of the devil's head we have feared to pass, Yet is our labor lost and vain, Alas. Scouring the earth from Orkney unto end, tossed on the seas and withered in the wind,

We seek and seek your land, how have we send? Or is it all a folly of the wise, Bidding us walk these ways with blinded eyes, while all around us real flowers arise? But by the very God we know, we know that some were still beyond the northern snow, waiting for us the red rose gardens blow poem twenty six song fairies must be in the woods or the satyrs laughing broods tritons in the summer sea else how could the dead things be half so lovely as they are how could wealth of star on star dusted o'er the frosty night fill thy spirit with delight and lead thee for from this care of thine up among the dreams divine, were it not that each and all of them that walk the heavenly hall is in truth a happy aisle, where eternal meadows smile,

and golden globes of fruit are seen, twinkling through the orchards green. Were the other people go, on the bright sward to and fro? Adam's dead could never thus stir the human heart of us, unless the beauty that we see the veil of endless beauty be filled full of spirits that have trod far hence along the heavenly sod and see the bright footprints of god poem twenty seven the ass i woke and rose and slipped away to the heathery hills in the morning gray in a field where the dew lay cold and deep i met an ass knew roused from sleep. I stroked his nose and I tickled his ears and spoke soft words to quiet his fears. His eyes stared into the eyes of me, and he kissed my hands of his courtesy.

Oh, big brown brother out of the waist, how do thistles for breakfast taste? And do you rejoice in the dawn divine with a heart that is glad no less than mine? for brother the depth of your gentle eyes is strange and mystic as the skies what are the thoughts that grope behind down in the mist of a donkey mind can it be true as the wise men tell that you are a mask of god as well and as in us so in you no less speaks the eternal loveliness and words of the lips that all things know among the thoughts of a donkey go However it be, O four-foot, brother, fair today is the earth our mother. God send you peace and delight thereof, and all green meat of the waste you love, and guard you well from violent men who'd put you back in the shafts again. But the ass had far too wise ahead to answer one of the things I said.

So he twitched his fair ears up and down, and turn to nuzzle his shoulder brown poem twenty eight ballad mystique the big red house is barren lone the stony garden waste and sear with blight of breezes ocean blown to pinch the wakening of the year my kindly friends with busy cheer my wretchedness could plainly show they tell me i am lonely here what do they know what do they know they think that while the gables moan and easements creak in winter drear i should be piteously alone without the speech of comrades dear and friendly for my sake they fear it grieves them thinking of me so while all their happy life is near what do they know what do they know that i have seen the d'egda's throne in sunny lands without a tear and found a forest all my own to ward with magic shield and spear where through the stately towers i rear for my desire around me go immortal shapes of beauty clear they do not know they do not know the friends i have without a pier beyond the western ocean's glow Whither the fairy galleys steer.

They do not know. How should they know? Poem 29. Night. I know a little druid wood, where I would slumber if I could, and have the murmuring of the stream to mingle with a midnight dream, and have the holy hazel trees to play above me in the breeze, and smell the thorny egglantine.

For there the white owls all night long, in the scented gloom divine, hear the wild, strange, tuneless song of fairy voices thin and high, as the bats on earthly cry, and the measure of their shun, dancing, dancing under the moon, until amid the pale of dawn the wandering stars begin to swoon. Ah, leave the world, and come away. The windy folk are in the glade, and men have seen their rebels laid in secret on some flowery lawn, underneath the beech and covers, kings of old, I've heard them say, here have found them fairy lovers, that charmed them out of life and kissed, their lips with cold lips unafraid, and such a spell around them made that they have passed beyond the mist, and found the country under way. save. Kings of old whom none could save. Poem 30 Oxford It is well that there are places of peace and discipline and dreaming and desire, lest we forget our heritage and cease,

the spirit's work to hunger and aspire. Lest we forget that we were born divine, now tangled in Red Battle's animal net, murder the work and lust the anodyne, pains of the beast against beastial solace set. But this shall never be, to us remains, one city that has nothing of the beast, that was not built for gross material gains,

sharp, wolfish power, or empire's glutted feast. We are not holy brute, to us remains, a clean, sweet city lulled by ancient streams, a place of visions and of loosening chains, a refuge of the elect, a tower of dreams. She was not builded out of common stone, but out of all men's yearning and all prayer, that she might live eternally our own,

the spirit's stronghold barred against despair. Poem 31 Him For boys' voices All the things magicians do Could be done by me and you Freely if we only knew Human children every day

Could play at games the fairies play If they were but shown the way Every man a god would be Laughing through eternity If as God's his eyes could see All the wizardries of God slaying matter with a nod, Charming spirits with his rod,

with the singing of his voice, making lonely lands rejoice, leaving us no will nor choice, drawing headlong, me and you, as the piping Orpheus drew, man and beast the mountains through, by the sweetness of his horn, calling us from lands forlorn,

nearer to the widening morn, All that loveliness of power Could be man's peculiar dower Even mine this very hour We should reach the hidden land And grow immortal out of hand If we could but understand We could revel day and night

In all power and all delight If we learn to think aright Poem 32 Our Daily Bread We need no barbred We need no barbarous words nor solemn spell to raise the unknown. It lies before our feet. There have been men who sank down into hell in some suburban street.

And some there are that in their daily walks have met archangels fresh from sight of God, or watched how in their beans and cabbage stocks long files of fairy trod. Often me too, the living voices call. in many a vulgar and habitual place i catch a sight of lands beyond the wall i see a strange god's face and some day this work will work upon me so i shall arise and leave both friends and home and over many lands a pilgrim go through alien woods and foam seeking the last steep edges of the earth whence i may leap into that gulf of light wherein before my narrowing self had birth part of me lived aright poem thirty three how he saw angus the god i heard the swallows sing in the eaves and rose all in a strange delight while others slept, and down the creaking stair alone tiptoes, so carefully I crept. The house was dark with silly blinds yet drawn, but outside the clean air was filled with light,

and underneath my feet the cold wet lawn with dew was twinkling bright. The cobwebs hung from every branch and spray, gleaming with pearly strands of laden thread, and long and still the morning shadows lay across the meadows spread. At that pure hour when yet no sound of man stirs in the whiteness of the awakening earth, alone through innocent solitudes I ran, singing aloud from earth. Till I had found the open mountain heath,

yellow with gorse and rested there and stood, to gaze upon the misty sea beneath, or on the neighboring wood that little wood of hazel and tall pine and youngling fir where oft we have loved to see the level beams of early morning shine freshly from tree to tree through the denser wood there's many a pool of deep and night-born shadow lingers yet where the new wakened flowers are damp and cool and the long grass is wet In the sweet heather long I rested there, looking upon the dappled early sky, when suddenly from out the shining air a god came flashing by. Swift, naked, eager, piteously fair, with a live crown of birds about his head, singing and fluttering and his fiery hair, for out behind him spread.

Streamed like a rippling torch upon the breeze of his own glorious swiftness, In the grass, he bruised no feathery stalk, and through the trees I saw his whiteness pass. But when I followed him beyond the wood, lo, he was changed into a solemn bull, that thereupon the open pasture stood, and browsed his lazy full. Poem 34 The Roads I stand on the windy uplands among the hills of Down, with all the world spread out beneath, meadow and sea and town, and plowlands on the far-off hills that glow with friendly brown.

And ever across the rolling land to the far horizon line, where the blue hills border the misty west, I see the white roads twine, the railroads and the fair roads that call this heart of mine. I see them dip in the valleys and vanish and rise and bend, from shadowy dell to wind-swept fell, and still to the west they wind, and over the cold blue ridge at last to the great world's uttermost end. And the call of the roads is upon me, a desire in my heart has grown, to wander forth in the highways, twixt earth and sky alone, and seek for the lands no foot has trod and the seas no sail has known. For the lands to the west of the evening and east of the morning's birth, where the gods unseen and their valleys green are glad at the

ends of the earth, and fear no morrow to bring them sorrow nor night to quench their mirth. Poem thirty-five, Hesperus. Through the starry hollow of the summer night, I would follow, follow Hesperus the bright, to seek beyond the western wave his garden of delight. Hesperus the fairest of all gods that are, peace and dreams thou bearest, in thy shadowy car, and often in my evening walks I bless thee from afar. Stars without number, dust the noon of night, thou the early slumber, and the still delight, of the gentle twilight hours rulest in thy right. When the pale skies shiver,

Seeing night is done, Past the ocean river, Lightly thou dost run To look for pleasant sleepy lands That never fear the sun. Where beyond the waters of the outer sea, Thy triple crown of daughters That guards the golden tree

sing out across the lonely tide a welcome home to thee. And while the old old dragon, for joy lifts up his head, they bring thee forth a flagon of nectar foaming red, and underneath the drowsy trees of poppies strew thy bed. Ah, that I could follow in thy footsteps bright, through the starry hollow of the summer night, sloping down the western ways to find my heart's delight. Poem 36

The Starbath A place uplifted towards the midnight sky, Far, far away among the mountains old, A treeless waste of rocks and freezing cold, Where the dead, cheerless moon rode neighboring by, And in the midst a silent tarn there lay, A narrow pool cold, as the tide that flows, where monstrous burgs beyond Varringer stray, rising from the sunless depths

that no man knows. Dither as clustering fireflies have I seen, at fixed seasons all the stars come down, to wash in that cold wave their brightness clean, and win the special fire wherewith they crown, the wintry heavens in frost, even as a flock, a flock. falling birds down to the pool they came. I saw them and I heard the icy shock of stars engulfed with hissing of faint flame, ages ago before the birth of men, or earliest beast, yet I was still the same that now remember, knowing not where or when. Poem 37 To Ne Quasieri For all the lore of lodge and mires, I cannot heal my torn desires, nor hope for all that men can spear to make the riddling earth grow clear.

Though it were sure and proven well that I shall prosper as they tell, in fields beneath a different sun, by shores where other oceans run, when this live body that was I, lies hidden from the cheerful sky, Yet what were endless lives to me, if still my narrow self I be, and hope and fail and struggle still, and break my will against God's will, to play for stakes of pleasure and pain, and hope and fail and hope again, deluded, thwarted, striving elf, that through the window of myself, as through a dark glass scarce can see, a warped and masked reality? But when this searching thought of mine is mingled in the large divine and laughter that was in my mouth

runs through the breezes of the south when glory I have built in dreams along some fiery sunset gleams and my dead sin and foolishness grow one with nature's whole distress to perfect being I shall win and where I end will life begin. Poem 38.

Lullaby. Lullaby, lullaby, there's a tower strong and high, built of oak and brick and stone, stands before a wood alone. The doors are of the oak so brown as any ale in Oxford town. The walls are builded warm and thick Of the old red Roman brick The good grey stone is overall In arch and floor of the tower tall And maidens three are living there

All in the upper chamber fair Hung with silver hung with Paul And stories painted on the wall And softly goes the whirring loom In my lady's upper room For they shall spend both night and day until the stars do pass away. But every night at evening,

the window open wide they fling, and one of them says a word they know, and out as three white swans they go. And the murmuring of the woods is drowned, in the soft wings whirring sound, as they go flying round around, singing in swan's voices high, a lonely, lovely lullaby.

Poem 39 World's Desire Love, there is a castle built in a country desolate, on a rock above a forest where the trees are grim and great, blasted with the lightning sharp, giant boulders strewn between, and the mountains rise above and the cold ravine, echoes to the crushing roar and thunder of a mighty river,

raging down a cataract. Very tower and forest quiver, and the gray wolves are afraid and the call of birds is drowned, and the thought and speech of man in the boiling waters sound. But upon the further side of the barren, sharp ravine, with the sunlight on its turrets, is the castle scene, calm and very wonderful, white above the green, of the wet and waving forest, slanted all away, because the driving northern wind will not rest by night or day. Yet the towers are sure above, very mighty is the stead, the gates are made of ivory, the roofs of copper-red. Round and round the warder's grave walk upon the walls forever, and the wakeful dragons couch in the ports of ivory. Nothing is can trouble it, hate of the

God's nor man's endeavor, and it shall be a resting place, dear heart, for you and me. Through the wet and waving forest with an age-old sorrow laden, singing of the world's regret wanders wild the fairy maiden, through the thistle and the briar, through the tangles of the thorn, till her eyes be dim with weeping, and her homeless feet are torn. Often to the castle gate up she looks with vain endeavor, For her soulless loveliness to the castle winneth never. But within the sacred court, hidden high upon the mountain, Wandering in the castle gardens lovely folk enough there be,

Breathing in another air, drinking of a purer fountain, And among that folk beloved, there's a place for you and me. Poem 40 Death in battle Open the gates for me Open the gates of the peaceful castle, Rosie and the west, In the sweet dim isle of apples

Over the wide seas breast, Open the gates for me! Sorily pressed have I been, And driven and hurt beyond bearing this summer day, But the heat and the pain together suddenly fall away, all's cool and green. But a moment agone, among men cursing and fight and toiling, blinded I fought, but the labor passed on a sudden, even as a passing thought, and now alone.

Ah, to be ever alone! In flowery valleys among the mountains and silent wastes untrod, in the dewy upland places in the garden of God, this would atone. I shall not see the brutal crowded faces around me that in their toil have grown, into the faces of devils, yea, even as my own, when I find thee. O country of dreams! Beyond the tide of the ocean hidden and sunk away,

out of the sound of battles, near to the end of day, full of dim woods and streams. End of Part 3, The Escape, and end of Spirits and Bondage by Clive Hamilton, a pseudonym for C.S. Lewis.