Against too many writers of science fiction <br /> <br />Why did you lure us on like this, <br />Light-year on light-year, through the abyss, <br />Building (as though we cared for size!) <br />Empires that cover galaxies <br />If at the journey's end we find <br />The same old stuff we left behind, <br />Well-worn Tellurian stories of <br />Crooks, spies, conspirators, or love, <br />Whose setting might as well have been <br />The Bronx, Montmartre, or Bedinal Green? <br /> <br />Why should I leave this green-floored cell, <br />Roofed with blue air, in which we dwell, <br />Unless, outside its guarded gates, <br />Long, long desired, the Unearthly waits <br />Strangeness that moves us more than fear, <br />Beauty that stabs with tingling spear, <br />Or Wonder, laying on one's heart <br />That finger-tip at which we start <br />As if some thought too swift and shy <br />For reason's grasp had just gone by?<br /><br />Clive Staples Lewis<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-expostulation-2/
