> 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)