By now I should be entering on the supreme stage Of the whole walk, reserved for the late afternoon. The heat was to be over now; the anxious mountains, The airless valleys and the sun-baked rocks, behind me. Now, or soon now, if all is well, come the majestic Rivers of foamless charity that glide …
John’a poem from C.S. Lewis’s The Pilgrim’s Regress When Lilith means to draw me Within her secret bower, She does not overawe me With beauty’s pomp and power, Nor, with angelic grace Of courtesy, and the pace Of gliding ships, comes veiled at evening hour. Eager, unmasked, she lingers Heart-sick and hunger sore With hot, dry, …
First it is necessary to note what Lewis is doing in this book. I think he is fundamentally wanting to illustrate the general psychological difference between ancient and medieval people and ourselves, in order to make us aware of our own “mental temper.” I think he holds that each age, very roughly speaking, has a …
