You Who Thirsts

Today’s poem is a sonnet which is part character poem and part dialogue. It is based after the character Jill Pole  who is found in  C.S. Lewis’, The Silver Chair, which is fourth in the The Chronicles of Narnia series. The sonnet’s initial inspiration comes from the following line from the beginning of that book, which reads, “It was a dull Autumn day and Jill Pole was crying behind the gym. She was crying because they had been bullying her….” This poem is titled, You Who Thirsts.

Dear child, come to me from your crying place
Where you hide from giants (bullying brutes)—
You, whose confidence masks another face
Waxing white at the sound of their jackboots.

Dear daughter, you who thirsts but dares not drink,
The stream is yours; its water satisfies,
Yet your conditions, the safety you think
Keeps safe, finds water but leaves you to die.

Eve’s Daughter, draw near. Don’t dare not to dare.
Though I, The Lion, have devoured kings of old,
If you’ll lose for me, you’ll gain all that’s fair,
Keep all your silver and get all the gold.

Rightly fearing, making the first of me,
You’ll drink of joy, know Love, be set free.

Artwork: Illustration by Pauline Baynes from The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis. Published by HarperCollins.