Endings by C. S. Lewis and Robinson Jeffers

[ananda]

This poem by C. S. Lewis really got me thinking -- how prescient.
Is this our world now?

http://www.poetrysoup.com/famous/poem/5954/cliche_came_out_of_its_cage

Here are the last lines:

For the end of man is to partake of their defeat and die
His second, final death in good company.
The stupid, strong
Unteachable monsters are certain to be victorious at last,
And every man of decent blood is on the losing side.

Take as your model the tall women with yellow hair in plaits
Who walked back into burning houses to die with men,
Or him who as the death spear entered into his vitals
Made critical comments on its workmanship and aim.

Are these the Pagans you spoke of? Know your betters and crouch, dogs;
You that have Vichy water in your veins and worship the event
Your goddess History (whom your fathers called the strumpet Fortune).
====================================

Now compare Lewis' ending to that of Robinson Jeffers in "The Deer Lay Down Their Bones"

http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems/robinson-jeffers/the-deer-lay-down-their-bones/

I am growing old, that is the trouble. My chil-
dren and little grandchildren
Will find their way, and why should I wait ten years yet, having lived sixty-
seven, ten years more or less,
Before I crawl out on a ledge of rock and die snapping, like a wolf
Who has lost his mate?--I am bound by my own thirty-year-old decision:
who drinks the wine
Should take the dregs; even in the bitter lees and sediment
New discovery may lie. The deer in that beautiful place lay down their
bones: I must wear mine.

Both poems tear through the psyche very well, I think. Awesome doesn't quite
describe it, but it comes close.