As the Ruin Falls.
By C.S.Lewis

All this 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, and grow a 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.

КРУШЕНИЕ.

Как пышно о любви я рассуждал!
В душе, эгоцентричный до костей,
себе служа, с пеленок я искал
лишь своего у Бога и людей.

Привычным многотомным кирпичом
учености – ученый попугай! -
я в безопасном замке заточен
над бездной бед. Ты привела на край

и превратила – способ очень прост:
самой собой – мужское сердце в мост.

Но рушатся опоры, на глазах
теряю берег вольный, и вослед
кричу, что эта боль и этот крах
дороже всех сокровищ и побед.