Alexandrines

Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)



There is a house that most of all on earth I hate.
Though I have passed through many sorrows and have been
In bloody fields, sad seas, and countries desolate,
Yet most I fear that empty house where the grasses green
Grow in the silent court the gaping flags between,
And down the moss-grown paths and terrace no man treads
Where the old, old weeds rise deep on the waste garden beds.
Like eyes of one long dead the empty windows stare
And I fear to cross the garden, I fear to linger there,
For in that house I know a little, silent room
Where Someone’s always waiting, waiting in the gloom
To draw me with an evil eye, and hold me fast—
Yet thither doom will drive me and He will win at last.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 13, 2023

41 sec read
56

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDDEEFFGGHH
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 693
Words 137
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 13

Clive Staples Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis was a British novelist, poet, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian, broadcaster, lecturer, and Christian apologist. He held academic positions at both Oxford University and Cambridge University. more…

All Clive Staples Lewis poems | Clive Staples Lewis Books

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