{
 "id": "c-s-lewis/tu-ne-qu-sieris",
 "title": "Tu Ne Quæsieris",
 "ordinal": "XXXVII",
 "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": null,
 "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": {
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  "repo": "standardebooks/c-s-lewis_poetry",
  "file": "spirits-in-bondage-chapter-37.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": 30,
  "n_stanzas": 1,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 39,
  "max_indent": 0
 },
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 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "For all the lore of Lodge and Myers",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I cannot heal my torn desires,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Nor hope for all that man can speer",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To make the riddling earth grow clear.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Though it were sure and proven well",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That I shall prosper, as they tell,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In fields beneath a different sun",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "By shores where other oceans run,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When this live body that was I",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Lies hidden from the cheerful sky,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Yet what were endless lives to me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "If still my narrow self I be",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hope and fail and struggle still,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And break my will against God’s will,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To play for stakes of pleasure and pain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And hope and fail and hope again,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Deluded, thwarted, striving elf",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That through the window of my self",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "As through a dark glass scarce can see",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A warped and masked reality?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But when this searching thought of mine",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Is mingled in the large Divine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And laughter that was in my mouth",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Runs through the breezes of the South,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When glory I have built in dreams",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Along some fiery sunset gleams,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And my dead sin and foolishness",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Grow one with Nature’s whole distress,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To perfect being I shall win,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And where I end will Life begin.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}