all this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
i never had a selfless thought since i was born.
i am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
i want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals i seek,
i cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
i talk of love --a scholar's parrot may talk greek--
but, self-imprisoned, always end where i begin.

only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
i see the chasm. And everything you are was making
my heart into a bridge by which i might get back
from exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

for this i bless you as the ruin falls. the pains
you give me are more precious than all other gains.

c.s. lewis--as the ruin falls