Lewis and Hathaway

They walk together,

The kind man and the pilgrim soul,

Through the dream clad city

(Where the heart is always young,

And thirsty),

And every base desire

Is cloaked up in such sophistries

As dazzle Byzantium,

Confusing and alluring in a serpent dance.

Truth is always journey’s end

The difficult journey,

Obfuscated, obstacle,

And fraught with every fear.

All revelation

Reverts self-revelation just like Newton’s Law.

And who can bear such light?

Only humility

Can walk straight through the maze.

Here stars sing poetry,

Scientists meddle in subjectivity,

Historians flinch at facts,

We are all bent creatures,

Imagining the grasp of Sauron’s ring,

While Alice sits within the gliding boat,

And Narnia demands “Become a child!”

And so the kind man and the pilgrim do

What Oxford always does;

Sit, drink, and talk,

Until they reach the meeting of the minds,

The clarity which is felicity

And charity shall hold the torch up high.