Dymer by C.S. Lewis - Canto 6

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Canto six of Dymer Dimer by C. S. Lewis, Canto six.
The sun was high in heaven, and Dymer stood a
bright speck on the endless mountain side till blossom after blossom,
that rich mood faded, and truth rolled homeward like a tide,

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before whose edge the weak soul fled to hide in vain.
With ostrich head threw many a shape of coward fancy,
whimpering for escape, but only for a moment. Then his
soul took the full swell and heaved a dripping prow
clear of the shattering wave crest. He was whole. No

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veil should hide the truth, No truth should cow the
dear self pitying heart. I'll babble now no longer, Dymer said,
I'm broken in Pack up the dreams and let the
life begin. With this, he turned. I must have food
to day, he muttered. Then among the cloudless hills, by

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winding tracks, he sought the downward way, and followed the
steep course of tumbling rills came to the glens, the
wakening mountain fills in spring time with the echoing splash
and shock of waters leaping cold from rock to rock,
and still it seemed that lark with its refrain, sang
in the sky, and wind was in his hair, and

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hope at heart. Then once and once again, he heard
a gun fired off It broke the air as a
stone breaks a pond, and everywhere the dry crags echoed clear,
and at the sound once a big bird rose, whirring
from the ground. In half an hour he reached the

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level land, and followed the field paths and crossed the stiles.
Then looked and saw near by on his left hand
an old house folded round with billowy piles of dark
yew hedge. The moss was on the tiles, the pigeons
in the yard, and in the tower a clock that
had no hands and told no hour. He hastened in

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warm waves. The garden scent came stronger at each stride.
The mountain breeze was gone. He reached the gates. Then
in he went, and seemed to lose the sky. Such
weight of trees hung overhead. He heard the noise of bees,
and saw far off in the blue shade, between the
windless elms, one walking on the green. It was a

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mighty man, whose beardless face beneath gray hair, shone out
so large and mild, it made a sort of moonlight
in the place. A dreamy desperation, wistful wild showed in
his glance and gait. Yet like a child, an Asian
emperor's only child was he, with his grave looks and
bright solemnity. And over him there hung the witching air,

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the wilf courtesy of the days of old, the graces
wherein idleness grows fair and somewhat. In his sauntering walk,
he rolled and toyed about his waist with seals of gold,
or stood to ponder, often in mid stride, tilting his
heavy head upon one side. When Damer had called twice,

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he turned his eye, then, coming out of silence, as
a star, all in one moment, slips into the sky
of evening. Yet we feel it comes from far, he said, sir,
you are welcome. Few there are that come my way.
And in huge hands he pressed Diimer's cold hand and
bade him in to rest. How did you find this

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place out? Have you heard my gun? It was? But
now I killed a lark, what, sir said Damer? Shoot
the singing bird, sir, said the man. They sing from
dawn till dark, and interrupt my dreams too long, But
hark another. Did you hear no singing? No, it was
my fancy. Then pray let it go from here. You

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see my garden's only flaw. Stand here, sir, at the dial,
Diimer stood. The master pointed. Then he looked and saw
how hedges and the funeral quietude of black trees fringe
the garden like a wood, and only in one place,
one gap that showed the blue side of the hills,
the White Hill Road. I have planted fir and larch

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to fill the gap, he said, because this too makes
war upon the art of dream. But by some great
mishap nothing I plant will grow there. We pass on.
The sunshine of the afternoon is gone. Let us go in.
It draws near time to sup I hate the garden
till the moon is up. They passed from the hot

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lawn into the gloom and coolness of the porch, then
past a door that opened with no noise, into a
room where green leaves choked the window and the floor
sank lower than the ground. A tattered store of brown
books met the eye, a crystal ball, and masts with
empty eyes along the wall. Then Dimer sat but knew

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not how nor where and supper was set out before
these two. He saw not how with silver old and rare,
but tarnished, and he ate, and never knew what meats
they were. At every bite he grew more drowsy, and
let slide his crumbling will. The Master at his side
was talking still, and all his talk was tales of

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magic words, and of the nations in the clouds above
astral and Airish tribes who fish for birds with angles,
And by history he could prove how chosen spirits from
earth had won their love as arthur or ushine, and
to their isle went Helen. For the sake of Greek
smile and ever in his talk he mustered well his

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texts and strewed old authors round the way. Thus Wyrus writes,
and thus the Hermetics tell this was Agrippa's view, and
others say with Cardon till he had stolen quite away
Dimer's dull wits, and softly drawn apart the ivory gates
of hope that change the heart. Dymer was talking now. Now,

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Damer told of his own love, and losing drowsily. The
Master leaned towards him. Was it cold this spirit to
the touch, No, sir, not she said Dymer and his host,
why this must be ethereal not aeriel o my soul
be still? But wait, tell an, sir, tell the whole.

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Then Dmer told him of the Beldam too, the old
old matriarchal dreadfulness over the master's face. A shadow drew.
He shifted in his chair. And yes, and yes, he
murmured twice, I never looked for less. Always the same,
that frightful woman's shape besets the dream way and the

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soul's escape. But now, when Diamer maid to talk of Bran,
a huge indifference fell upon his host. Patient and wondering eyed.
Then he began, forgive me, you are young. What helps
us most is to find out again that heavenly ghost
who loves you. For she was a ghost, and you,
in that place where you met, were ghostly too. Listen,

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for I can launch you on the stream, will roll
you to the shores of her own land. I could
be sworn you never learned to dream. But every night
you take with careless hand what chance may bring. I'll
teach you to command the comings and the goings of
your spirit through all that borderland which dreams inherit. You

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shall have hauntings suddenly, and often when you get when
least you think of her. For so you shall forget.
A light will soften over the evening woods, and in
the stir of morning dreams, Oh, I will teach you, sir,
there'll come a sound of wings, or you shall be
waked in the midnight, murmuring it was she. No, No,

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said Dimer, not that way. I seem to have slept
for twenty years. Now while I shake out of my
eyes that dust of burdening dream. Now when the long
clouds tremble, ripe to break, and the far hills appear,
when first I wake, still blinking, struggling towards the world
of men, and longing, would you turn me back again, dreams?

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I have had my dream too long. I thought the
sun rose for my sake. I ran down, blind and
dancing to the abyss. Oh, sir, I brought boy laughter
for a gift to God's who find the martyr's soul
too soft. But that's behind I'm waking now. They broke
me all ends thus always, and we are for them,

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not they for us. And she she was no dream.
It would be waste to seek her there the living,
in that den of lies, the master smiled. You are
in haste for broken dreams. The cure is dream again
and deeper. If the waking world and men and nature

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marred your dream so much, the worse for a crude
world beneath its primal curse. Ah, but you do not know.
Can dreams do this? Pluck out blood guiltiness upon the
shore of memory, and undo what's amiss, and bid the
thing that has been be no more? Sir, it is
only dreams. Unlock that door, he answered, with a shrug.

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What would you have in dreams? The thrice proved coward
can feel brave in dreams. The fool is free from
scorning voices. Gray headed hoars are virgin. There again, out
of the past, dream brings long buried choices, All in
a moment, snaps the tenfold chain that life took years

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in forging, there the stain of oldest sins. How do
the good words go? Though they were scarlet, shall be
white as snow? Then, drawing near, when Daimer did not speak,
my little son said he your wrong and right are
also dreams fetters to bind the weak faster to phantom earth,

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and blear the sight, Wake into dreams, into the larger
light that quenches these rail stars. They will not know
Earth's by laws. In the land to which you go,
I must undo my sins, unearthly law, and even in
earth the child of yesterday. Throw down your human pity,

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cast your awe behind you, put repentance all away home
to the elder depths. For never they supped with the stars,
who dared not slough behind the last shred of Earth's
holies from their mind. Sir answered Dymer, I would be
content to drudge in Earth, easing my heart's disgrace, counting

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a year's long service lightly spent. If once at the
year's end, I saw her face somewhere, being then most
weary in some place, I looked not for that joy,
or heard her near whispering, Yet courage friend, for one
more year, Pish, said the master. Will you have the truth?

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You think that virtue saves her people, care for the
high heart and idle hours of youth. For these they
will descend our lower air. Not virtue, You would nerve
your arm and bear your burden among men. Look to it, child,
By Virtue's self vision can be defiled. You will grow

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full of pity and the love of men, and toil
until the more brning moisture dries out of your heart.
Then once or once again, it may be, you will
find her. But your eyes soon will be grown too dim.
The task that lies next to your hand will hide her.
You shall be the child of Earth and God's you
shall not see here. Suddenly he ceased tiptoes he went.

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A bolt clicked. Then the window creaked ajar, and out
of the wet world the hedgerow scent came floating, and
the dark, without one star, nor shape of trees, nor
scents of near and far, the undimensioned night and formless
skies were there, and where the Master's great allies. I

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am very old, he said. But if the time we
suffered in our dreams were counting age, I have outlived
the ocean, and my prime is with me to this day.
Years cannot gage the dream life. In the turning of
a page, dozing above my book, I have lived through
more ages than the lost la Muria knew. I am

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not mortal, were I doomed to die this hour, In
this half hour, I interpose a thousand years of dream
and those gone by as many more. And in the
last of those ten thousand ever journeying towards a close
that I shall never reach. For time shall flow wheel
within wheel interminably slow, and you will drink my cup

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and go your way into the valley of dreams. You
have heard the call, come hither and escape. Why should
you stay? Earth is a sinking ship, a house whose
wall is tottering while you sweep. The roof will fall
before the work is done. You cannot mend it, patch
as you will. At last, the rot must end it. Then,

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Dimer lifted up his heavy head, like Atlas on broad shoulders,
bearing up the insufferable globe. I had not said, he mumbled,
never said I'd taste the cup. What is it this
you give me? Must I sup o lies? All lies?
Why did you kill the lark? Guide me the cup

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to lip? It is so dark? End of Canto six