I

Satan Speaks

I am Nature, the Mighty Mother,
I am the law: ye have none other.

I am the flower and the dewdrop fresh,
I am the lust in your itching flesh.

I am the battle’s filth and strain,
I am the widow’s empty pain.

I am the sea to smother your breath,
I am the bomb, the falling death.

I am the fact and the crushing reason
To thwart your fantasy’s new-born treason.

I am the spider making her net,
I am the beast with jaws blood-wet.

I am a wolf that follows the sun
And I will catch him ere day be done.

Where this text comes from

First published in Spirits in Bondage (1919). First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established. [1] [2]

Structure read from the source's markup; the words have not been compared against a page scan. Last checked 2026-08-20.

Taken from Standard Ebooks, standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry, spirits-in-bondage-chapter-1.xhtml. Rights: public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931).

Earlier sources (3)

This poem as JSON or plain text. Line anchors #L1–#L14.

Cite this poem

C. S. Lewis (1898–1963). “Satan Speaks.” First published in Spirits in Bondage (1919). Text: Poem Index, https://poemindex.org/c-s-lewis/satan-speaks/. Append #L14 to cite line 14, or #L4-L9 for lines 4–9.

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