Re: Betreft: Re: Steg's wonderful .sig (and a question)

Steg Belsky wrote:

> What is that?  Could you post it here?
I don't have the full poem: its title is "Mythopoeia" (the making of myths).
But here's the critical excerpt (the square-bracketed lines are those JRRT omitted
when quoting the poem in a letter to C.S. Lewis and again in the essay "On
Fairy-Stories"):.

        [The heart of man is not compound of lies,
        but draws some wisdom from the only Wise,
        and still recalls him.] Though now long estranged,
        man is not wholly lost nor wholly changed.
        Dis-graced he may be, yet is not dethroned,
        and keeps the rags of lordship once he owned,
        [his world dominion by creative act:
        not his to worship the great Artefact,]
        Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
        through whom is splintered from a single White
        to many hues, and endlessly combined
        in living shapes that move from mind to mind.
        Though all the crannies of the world we filled
        with elves and goblins, though we dared to build
        gods and their houses out of dark and light,
        and sow the seeds of dragons, 'twas our right
        (used or misused). The right has not decayed.
        We make still by the law in which we're made.

Comment from me would be superfluous.

--

John Cowan      http://www.reutershealth.com            jcowan@reutershealth.com
Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! / Schliess eurer Aug vor heiliger Schau
Den er genoss vom Honig-Tau / Und trank die Milch vom Paradies.
                -- Coleridge (tr. Politzer)