Chanson D’Aventure / C.S. Lewis

Chanson D’Aventure

I heard in Addison’s Walk a bird sing clear
‘This year the summer will come true. This year. This year.

‘Winds will not strip the blossom from the apple trees
This year, nor want of rain destroy the peas.

‘This year time’s nature will no more defeat you,
Nor all the promised moments in their passing cheat you.

‘This summer will not lead you round and back
To autumn, one year older, by the well-worn track.

‘Often deceived, yet open once again your heart,
The gates of good adventure swing apart.

‘This time, this time, as all these flowers foretell,
We shall escape the circle and undo the spell.’

I said, ‘This might prove truer than a bird can know;
And yet your singing will not make it so.’

~~
C.S. Lewis (1898-1963)
from The Oxford Magazine, February 1938

[Poem is in the public domain in Canada]

C. S. Lewis biography

"What the Bird Said Early in the Year" read by Jo-Ann Dawson.

Courtesy St Mary Magdalene, Toronto - Anglican Church.

"What the Bird Said Early in the Year" is a later version of "Chanson d'Aventure" (not published in Lewis's lifetime) that is inscribed on a memorial stone to Lewis on Addison's Walk at Magdalen College, Cambridge. The variations in the versions are discussed in "Carved in Stone: What the Bird Did Not Say Early in the Year" in The Lewis Legacy Issue 75 (Winter 1998).