Poems

Author: C.S. Lewis

Summary: A collection of Lewis’s shorter poetry on a wide range of subjects-God and the pagan deities, unicorns and spaceships, nature, love, age, and reason: “Idea poems which reiterate themes known to have occupied Lewis’ ingenious and provocative mind” (Clyde S. Kilby, New York Times Book Review). Edited and with a Preface by Walter Hooper.

This definitive collection of poetry contains a rich variety of styles and moods — intimate, emotional, satirical, ironic, classical, mystical; but always clear-headed and full of wisdom. The collection will be an essential part of any Lewis library.

Contents:

* Part I: The Hidden Country
– A Confession
– Impenitence
– A Cliché Came Out of Its Cage
– Pan’s Purge
– Narnian Suite
– The Magician and the Dryad
– The True Nature of Gnomes
– The Birth of Language
– The Planets
– Pindar Sang
– Hermione in the House of Paulina
– Young King Cole
– The Prodigality of Firdausi
– Le Roi S’Amuse
– Vitrea Circe
– The Landing
– The Day with a White Mark
– Donkey’s Delight
– The Small Man Orders His Wedding
– The Country of the Blind
– On Being Human
– The Ecstasy
– The Saboteuse
– The Last of the Wine
– As One Oldster to Another
– Ballad of Dead Gentlemen
– The Adam Unparadised
– The Adam at Night
– Solomon
– The Late Passenger
– The Turn of the Tide

* Part II: The Backward Glance
– Evolutionary Hymn
– Prelude to Space: An Epithalamium
– Science-Fiction Cradlesong
– An Expostulation: Against too many writers of sciece fiction
– Odora Canum Vis: A defence of certain modern biographers and critics
– On a Vulgar Error
– The Future of Forestry
– Lines During a General Election
– The Condemned
– The Genuine Article
– On the Atomic Bomb: Metrical Experiment
– To the Author of Flowering Rifle
– To Roy Campbell
– Coronation March
– “Man is a Lumpe Where All Beasts Kneaded Be”
– On a Picture by Chirico
– On a Theme from Nicholas of Cusa
– What the Bird Said Early in the Year
– The Salamander
– Infatuation
– Vowels and Sirens
– The Prudent Jailer
– Aubade
– Pattern
– After Aristotle
– Reason
– To Andrew Marvell
– Lines Written in a Copy of Milton’s Work
– Scholar’s Melancholy

* Part III: A Larger World
– Wormwood
– Virtue’s Independence
– Posturing
– Deception
– Deadly Sins
– The Dragon Speaks
– Dragon-Slayer
– Lilith
– A Pageant Played in Vain
– When the Curtain’s Down
– Divine Justice
– Eden’s Courtesy
– The Meteorite
– Two Kinds of Memory
– Re-adjustment
– Nearly They Stood
– Relapse
– Late Summer
– To a Friend
– To Charles Williams
– After Vain Pretence
– Angel’s Song
– Joys That Sting
– Old Poets Remembered
– As the Ruin Falls

* Part IV: Noon’s Intensity
– Poem for Psychoanalysts and/or Theologians
– Noon’s Intensity
– Sweet Desire
– Caught
– Forbidden Pleasure
– The Naked Seed
– Scazons
– Legion
– Pilgrim’s Problem
– Sonnet
– The Phoenix
– The Nativity
– Prayer
– Love’s as Warm as Tears
– No Beauty We Could Desire
– Stephen to Lazarus
– Five Sonnets
– Evensong
– The Apologist’s Evening Prayer
– Footnote to All Prayers
– After Prayers, Lie Cold

* Part V: A Farewell to Shadowlands
– Epigrams and Epitaphs