Neat Poem (cross-archive)

A cool new friend of mine, -- , introduced me to a C.S. Lewis poem. Wow.

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As the Ruin Falls

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love – a scholar's parrot may talk Greek –
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, a grown man. And now the bridge is breaking,

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

(C.S. Lewis)