Poems

Known for his fiction and philosophical nonfiction, C. S. Lewis—the great British writer, scholar, lay theologian, broadcaster, Christian apologist, and bestselling author of Mere Christianity, The Screwtape Letters, The Great Divorce, The Chronicles of Narnia, and many other beloved classics—was also an accomplished poet. In Poems, Lewis dives deep into a wide range of subjects—from God to nature to love to unicorns—revealing his extensive imagination and sense of wonder.

Contents:

Part I: The Hidden Country

• A Confession
• Impenitence
• A Cliche 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
• Hemione 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 Winee
• As One Oldster to Another
• Ballade 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 Science Fiction
• Odora Can 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 Nicolas 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 Works
• 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 Pretense
• Angel's Song
• Joys That Sting
• Old Poets Remembered
• As the Ruin Falls

Part IV: Further Up and Further In

• 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

Appendix