Dymer by C.S. Lewis - Canto 5

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Canto five of Dimer Dimer by C. S. Lewis, Canto five.
Through bearded Cliffs, a valley has driven thus deep its
wedge into the mountain, and no more. The faint track
of the farthest wandering sheep ends here, and the gray hollows,
at their core of silence, feel the dulled, continuous roar

(00:25):
of higher streams. At every step. The skies grow less,
and in their place black ridges rise Hither long afternoon
with plodding tread and eyes on earth grown dogged, Dimer came,
who all the long day in the woods had fled
from the horror of those lips that screamed his name

(00:46):
and cursed him. Busy wonder and keen shame were driving him,
and little thoughts like bees followed and pricked him on
and left no ease. Now when he looked and aw
this emptiness seven times enfolded in the idle hills, there
came a chilly pause to his distress, a cloud of

(01:08):
the deep world, despair that fills a man's heart like
the incoming tide, and kills all pains except its own.
In that broad sea. No hope, no change, and no
regret can be he felt the eternal strength of the
silly earth, the unhastening circuit of the stars and sea,

(01:29):
the business of perpetual death and birth, the meaningless precision.
All must be the same, and still the same in
each degree. Who cared now? And he smiled and could forgive,
believing that for sure he would not live. Then, where
he saw a little water run beneath a bush, he slept.

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The chills of may came dropping, and the stars peered
one by one out of the deepening blue, while far
away the western brightness dulled to bars of half way
to midnight. Suddenly, from dreaming he woke wide into present horror, screaming,
for he had dreamt of being in the arms of

(02:11):
his beloved and in quiet places. But all at once
it filled with night alarms and wrapping guns, and men
with splintered faces, no eyes, no nose, all red, were
running races with worms along the floor. And he ran
out to find the girl and shouted, And that shout
had carried him into the waking world. There stood the concave, vast,

(02:35):
unfriendly night, and over him the scroll of stars unfurled. Then,
wailing like a child, he rose upright, heartsick with desolation,
the new blight of loss had nipped him sore and
sad self pity thinking of her, then thinking of the city.
For in each moment's thought the deeds of Bran, the

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burning and the blood, and his own shame, would tease
him into madness, till he ran for refuge to the
thought of her. Whence came utter an endless loss, no
not a name, not a word, nothing, left himself alone
crying amid that valley of old stone. How soon it

(03:18):
all ran out? And I suppose they they up there,
the old contriving powers. They knew it all the time.
For some one knows and waits and watches till we
pluck the flowers, then leaps. So soon my store of
happy hours all gone before I knew, I have expended
my whole wealth in a day. It's finished, ended, and

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nothing left. Can it be possible that joy flows through
and when the course is run, it leaves no change,
no mark on us to tell its passing. And as
poor as we've begun, we end the richest day what
we have won? Can it all die? Like this? Joy
flickers on the razor edge of the present and is gone?

(04:06):
What have I done to bear upon my name the
curse of Bran. I was not of his crew, nor
any man's. And Dymer has the blame. What have I done?
Wronged whom I never knew? What's brand to me? I
had my deed to do and ran out by myself
alone and free. Why should earth sing with joy and
not for me? Ah? But the earth never did sing

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for joy. There is a glamor on the leaf and flower,
and April comes and whistles to a boy over white fields,
And beauty has such power upon us He believes her
in that hour? For who could not believe? Can it
be false? All that the blackbird says and the wind calls?
What have I done? No living thing I made nor

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wished to suffer harm. I sought my good because the
spring was gloriously arrayed, and the blue eyebright miss did
all the wood yet to obey that spring time and
my blood. This was to be unarmed and off my guard,
and gave God time to hit once and hit hard.
The men build right, who made that city of ours?

(05:14):
They knew their world. A man must crouch to face
infinite malice, watching at all hours, shut nature out, give
her no moment's space for entry. The first needs of
all our race are walls, a den, a cover. Traitor,
I who first ran out beneath the open sky, our

(05:34):
fortress and fenced place, I made to fall. I slipped
the sentries and let in the foe. I have lost
my brothers and my love, and all nothing is left
but me. Now let me go. I have seen the
world stripped naked, and I know, Great God, take back
your world. I will have none of all your glittering gods,
but death alone. Meanwhile, the earth swung round and hollow night.

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Souls without number in all nations slept snug on her back,
safe speeding towards the light. Hours told, and in damp
woods the night beast crept, and over the long seas
the watch was kept in black ships, twinkling onward, green
and red. Always the ordered stars moved overhead, and no

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one knew that Dimer in his scales, had weighed all
these and found them nothing worth. Indifferently, the dawn that
never fails troubled the east of night with gradual birth, whispering,
a change of colors on cold earth, and a bird woke.
Then too, the sunlight ran along the hills, and yellow

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day began, but stagnant, gloom clung in the valley, yet
hills crowded out a third part of the sky black looking,
and the bowlders dripped with wet No birds sang Dimer, shivering.
Heaved a sigh and yawned, and said, it's cruel work
to die of hunger, And again, with cloudy breath blown

(07:06):
between chattering teeth, it's a bad death. He crouched and
clasped his hands about his knees, and hugged his own
limbs for the pitiful sense of homeliness they had, familiar's these,
this body, at least his own, his last defense. But
soon his morning misery drove him, thence eating his heart

(07:29):
to wonder. As Chance led on upward to the narrowing
gully's head. The cloud lay on the nearest mountain top,
as from a giant's chimney, smoking there. But Dymer took
no heed. Sometimes he'd stop. Sometimes he hurried faster as
despair pricked deeper and cried out. Even now somewhere Bran

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with his crews at work, they rack, they burn, and
there's no help in me. I've served their turn. Meanwhile,
the furrowed fog rolled down ahead, long tatters of its vanguerd,
smearing round the bases of the crags like cobweb, shed
down the deep combs. It dulled, the tinkling sound of

(08:13):
water on the hills. The spongy ground faded three yards ahead,
then nearer yet fell the cold wreaths, the white depth
gleaming wet. Then, after a long time the path he
trod led downward, then all suddenly it dipped far steeper,
and yet steeper with smooth sod. He was half running.

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Now a stone that slipped beneath him rattled headlong down.
He tripped, stumbled and clutched. Then panic and no hope
to stop himself. Once lost upon that slope, and faster,
ever faster, and his eye caught tree tops far below.
The nightmare feeling had gripped him. He was screaming, and

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the sky seemed hanging upside down. Then struggling, really with
effort beyond thought, he hung half kneeling, halted. One saving
moment with wild will, he clawed into the hill side
and lay still, half hanging on both arms. His idle
feet dangled and found no hold. The moor lay wet

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against him, and he sweated with the heat of terror,
all alive, his teeth were set by God. I will
not die, said he not yet. Then slowly, slowly, with
enormous strain, he heaved himself an inch, then heaved again,
till saved and spent. He lay. He felt indeed it

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was the big round world beneath his breast, the mother
planet proven at his need, the shame of glad. Surrender,
stood confessed, He cared not for his boasts. This this
was best, this giving up of all. He need not strive,
he panted. He lay still. He was alive, and now

(10:02):
his eyes were closed. Perhaps he slept lapped in unearthly quiet,
never knew how. Bit by bit the FOG's white rear
guard crept over the crest and faded, and the blue
first brightening at the zenith, trembled through and deepening shadows
took a sharper form each moment, and the sandy earth

(10:22):
grew warm, yet dreaming of blue skies. In dream, he
heard the pure voice of a lark that seemed to
send its song from heights beyond all height. That bird
sang out of heaven, the world will never end, sang
from the gates of heaven, will never end, saying till

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it seemed there was no other thing but bright space,
and one voice set there to sing. It seemed to
be the murmur and the voice of beings beyond number,
each in all singing, I am, each of itself, made choice,
and was whence flows the justice that men call divine.

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She keeps the great worlds lest they fall from hour
to hour, and makes the hills renew their ancient youth,
and sweetens all things through. It seemed to be the
low voice of the world, brooding alone beneath the strength
of things, murmuring of days and nights and years unfurled forever,

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and the unwearied joy that brings out of old fields,
the flowers of unborn springs out of old wars, and
cities burned with wrong, a splendor in the dark, a tale,
a song. The dream ran thin towards waking, and he
knew it was a bird's piping with no sense. He

(11:46):
rolled round on his back. The sudden blue, quivering with light, hard,
cloudless and intense, shone over him. The lark still sounded, thence,
and stirred him at the heart. Some spacious thought was
pass by, too gently to be caught. With that, he
thrust the damp hair from his face and sat upright.

(12:08):
The perilous cliff dropped sheer before him. Close at hand,
and from his place, listening in mountain silence, he could
hear birds crying far below. It was not fear that
took him, but strange glory. When his eye looked past
the edge into surrounding sky. He rose and stood, then

(12:29):
low the world beneath wide pools that in the sun splashed,
foothills lay sheep, dotted downs, soft piled and rolling heath,
river and shining weir and steeples, gray and the green
waves of forest. Far away distance. Rose heaped on distance

(12:49):
nearer hand, the white roads leading down to a new land.
End of Canto five,