Science-fiction Cradlesong
Clive Staples Lewis 1898 (Clive Staples Lewis Belfast) – 1963 (Oxford)
By and by Man will try
To get out into the sky,
Sailing far beyond the air
From Down and Here to Up and There.
Stars and sky, sky and stars
Make us feel the prison bars.
Suppose it done. Now we ride
Closed in steel, up there, outside
Through our port-holes see the vast
Heaven-scape go rushing past.
Shall we? All that meets the eye
Is sky and stars, stars and sky.
Points of light with black between
Hang like a painted scene
Motionless, no nearer there
Than on Earth, everywhere
Equidistant from our ship.
Heaven has given us the slip.
Hush, be still. Outer space
Is a concept, not a place.
Try no more. Where we are
Never can be sky or star.
From prison, in a prison, we fly;
There's no way into the sky.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 30, 2023
- 42 sec read
- 903 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | AABBCC DDEEAA FFBBGG HHIIAA |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 709 |
Words | 140 |
Stanzas | 4 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 6, 6 |
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"Science-fiction Cradlesong" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 8 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/6958/science-fiction-cradlesong>.
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