{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/de-profundis",
 "title": "De Profundis",
 "ordinal": "XII",
 "subtitle": null,
 "poet": "C. S. Lewis",
 "poet_slug": "c-s-lewis",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "Spirits in Bondage",
 "book_slug": "spirits-in-bondage",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 11,
 "container": null,
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1919,
  "venue": "Spirits in Bondage (1919)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-12.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2003",
   "https://archive.org/details/spiritsinbondage00lewirich",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/101865124"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-20"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 36,
  "n_stanzas": 12,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 51,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Come let us curse our Master ere we die,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For all our hopes in endless ruin lie.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The good is dead. Let us curse God most High.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Four thousand years of toil and hope and thought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Wherein man laboured upward and still wrought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "New worlds and better, Thou hast made as naught.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "We built us joyful cities, strong and fair,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Knowledge we sought and gathered wisdom rare.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And all this time you laughed upon our care,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "And suddenly the earth grew black with wrong,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our hope was crushed and silenced was our song,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The heaven grew loud with weeping. Thou art strong.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Come then and curse the Lord. Over the earth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Gross darkness falls, and evil was our birth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And our few happy days of little worth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Even if it be not all a dream in vain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "—The ancient hope that still will rise again⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of a just God that cares for earthly pain,",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet far away beyond our labouring night,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He wanders in the depths of endless light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Singing alone his musics of delight;",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Only the far, spent echo of his song",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our dungeons and deep cells can smite along,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Thou art nearer. Thou art very strong.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "O universal strength, I know it well,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It is but froth of folly to rebel,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For thou art Lord and hast the keys of Hell.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Yet I will not bow down to thee nor love thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For looking in my own heart I can prove thee,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And know this frail, bruised being is above thee.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Our love, our hope, our thirsting for the right,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Our mercy and long seeking of the light,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall we change these for thy relentless might?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Laugh then and slay. Shatter all things of worth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Heap torment still on torment for thy mirth⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thou art not Lord while there are Men on earth.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}