{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/ode-for-new-years-day",
 "title": "Ode for New Year’s Day",
 "ordinal": "VIII",
 "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": 8,
 "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-8.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": 46,
  "n_stanzas": 4,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 68,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "Woe unto you, ye sons of pain that are this day in earth,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Now cry for all your torment: now curse your hour of birth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And the fathers who begat your to a portion nothing worth.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And Thou, my own belovèd, for as brave as ere thou art,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Bow down thine head, Despoina, clasp thy pale arms over it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lie low with fast-closed eyelids, clenched teeth, enduring heart,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For sorrow on sorrow is coming wherein all flesh has part.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The sky above is sickening, the clouds of God’s hate cover it,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Body and soul shall suffer beyond all word or thought,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Till the pain and noisy terror that these first years have wrought",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Seem but the soft arising and prelude of the storm",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That fiercer still and heavier with sharper lightnings fraught",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Shall pour red wrath upon us over a world deform.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Thrice happy, O Despoina, were the men who were alive",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In the great age and the golden age when still the cycle ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "On upward curve and easily, for then both maid and man",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And beast and tree and spirit in the green earth could thrive.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But now one age is ending, and God calls home the stars",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And looses the wheel of the ages and sends it spinning back",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Amid the death of nations, and points a downward track,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And madness is come over us and great and little wars.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He has not left one valley, one isle of fresh and green",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where old friends could forgather amid the howling wreck.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It’s vainly we are praying. We cannot, cannot check",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The Power who slays and puts aside the beauty that has been.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "It’s truth they tell, Despoina, none hears the eart’s complaining",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For Nature will not pity, nor the red God lend an ear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet I too have been mad in the hour of bitter paining",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And lifted up my voice to God, thinking that he could hear",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The curse wherewith I cursed Him because the Good was dead.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But lo! I am grown wiser, knowing that our own hearts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Have made a phantom called the Good, while a few years have sped",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Over a little planet. And what should the great Lord know of it",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Who tosses the dust of chaos and gives the suns their parts?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hither and thither he moves them; for an hour we see the show of it:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Only a little hour, and the life of the race is done.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And here he builds a nebula, and there he slays a sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And works his own fierce pleasure. All things he shall fulfill,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And O, my poor Despoina, do you think he ever hears",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The wail of hearts he has broken, the sounds of human ill?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He cares not for our virtues, our little hopes and fears,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And how could it all go on, love, if he knew of laughter and tears?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Ah, sweet, if a man could cheat him! If you could flee away",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Into some other country beyond the rosy West,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To hide in the deep forests and be for ever at rest",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From the rankling hate of God and the outworn world’s decay!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}