The Poem I Wrote As I Struggled With Depression

Last year, I struggled with a deep and debilitating depression, through which I was burdened with the feeling (among other things) that the promises of God couldn’t apply to someone like me. As I searched the Scriptures for hope, I wrote this poem to remind myself of the Gospel. The struggles I faced then are certainly not over now, but God has grown me immensely through the very real pain of depression – something I know many other Christians struggle with as well. I want to share this poem as what may be an encouragement to you also in the moments when God seems very far away, and your own sin and darkness overwhelming. The darkness is real. But our hope is real also. 

These words were inspired by a story told by C.S. Lewis in his autobiography, Surprised by Joy. He was describing a battle in WWI, in which he felt that everywhere he turned he was faced with desolation and death. Then he looked up into the sky and saw a flash of silver light, and he wished he could be up there, above all this terror, completely removed and safe from the awful things going on around him. The flash of light got nearer and he realized it was a plane. A few seconds later, the plane dropped a bomb and the ground near by exploded upwards beneath its impact. Lewis felt that even up there in the heavens he had sought, there was no isolation or safety from that which he most wanted escape.

When I first read his story in the midst of my own depression, I thought, But that is just how I feel. The Person I want to go to, to flee to, to find refuge in and escape all this around me, is the very Person I don’t feel will take me in. 

I sat down to write, and the first words that came to me were: The birds are no nearer the moon than I. Built around those words is this poem. Heaven above is untainable by us sinful, mortal creatures. We cannot ascend to touch it, so God descends to us.

Dark enchanting of fire light,

Deceitful glower in black night,

On burning embers my eyes rest,

To seek and tremble at Hell’s quest,

To cringe ‘neath torture of its test,

Trembling beneath life’s cruel rob,

A smile given to conceal a sob!

 

How strange a thing – this fire light!

How bleak, how warm, treacherous fight,

Only warming when it’s burning,

Deceitful light, shadows turning,

Life’s death, death’s life, vainly churning,

Turns steady only to destroy,

Being the light of hope and the death of joy.

 

If hope was found less deceitful,

If warmth, and light, less regretful,

Then in joy, though wretched and vain,

Could perhaps I live life’s cruel strain,

Cold blade, hot breath, in twisted pain.

By this fire’s shadow and ember,

I, my soul’s loathsome burden, remember.

 

Remember, say I, but despair,

Is the spine of thought, life, and care.

Memory holds naught of soul’s strain,

The heavy burden of lost gain,

The steady bearing of my pain.

Vainly, speak I, of mind’s ideal,

As my soul is grinding beneath her heel.

 

Leave I, this fire’s deceitful light,

And enter into star-lit night,

I forsake my seat by fire cold,

And leave with heart’s longing of old,

Which brought the ache of its dark hold,

Of hope forgotten, life lain still,

Of my body wretched and my soul ill.

 

Above me shines a thousand beams,

Of heaven’s eye, unearthly streams,

Limpid water, white song in star,

The song of visions ever far,

Their silent gowns, pure without mar,

I gaze up in my soul’s folly,

To taste the sweet joy of melancholy.

 

Drinking the light of this nectar,

Gazing upon this pure specter,

I long to be she, beautiful,

With heart of angels, song in soul,

Holy, unblemished, white and full,

Untouched and unscathed by earth’s reach,

Above Hell’s mountains, beneath Heaven’s feet.

 

Instead grovel I, shackled in time,

Fatal peirce of life’s weary climb,

The light above all mortal clasp,

Is thus above my starving grasp.

To taste the gloom of final gasp,

Casts one ever from heaven’s face,

Repulsed, am I always, from God’s embrace.

 

But then, in my heart’s low despair,

See I, the moon, shining there,

Above reach of darkness and clouds,

Ne’r touched by mortality’s shrouds,

Ever beyond death’s dismal vows,

Wild and clear, in purity flamed,

The huntress, the bride, the virgin untamed,

 

Seeketh I this pure enchantress,

Song of fairy, voice of madness,

Beautiful, awful, silver shrine,

Glorious being with touch devine,

Diamond in darkness’s black mine,

Hope to my foolish mind is brought:

The moon is nearer than the stars I sought.

 

I raise my hand to touch pure beam,

But Oh! Not I, can grasp her gleam,

Shackled still by sins’ thoughts, unknown

By any being to Heaven flown.

No mortal wings can reach the sky,

The birds are no nearer the moon than I.

 

My being aches with this folly found,

Fingers lower at reason’s sound,

Heart was bruised, but now is breaking,

Soul is crushed beneath this aching,

Body screams with silent quaking,

Always to fall beneath Hell’s breach,

E’er to be shackled beyond Heaven’s reach.

 

Then must I end this life so cruel?

For taunt, I always, Heaven’s rule,

The worthless worm, corrupted being,

From all that is good, ever fleeing,

Rejecting always what was freeing.

Does God grant such traitors their life?

Should I end Mercy, with Justice’s knife?

 

Hold I the sword of blinded law?

Never to see, she never saw,

The agonized creep of life’s end,

Deaf to the cry that justice bend,

Foe of sin, thus to none a friend,

Loathing all that is man’s evil,

Her eyes are blind, but her blade is lethal.

 

If Heaven stays her awful blade,

Then Hell shall find my sin’s unpaid,

But if she casts her vengeance down,

Mercy never for me is found.

My mind, these awful thoughts confound,

Either way, my hope is now flown,

Through the terrible seeds my sins have sown.

 

Blood must be paid, my blood must flow,

Pierced by the law am I below,

Heaven’s light of the law devine,

Which holds upright the holy shrine,

And justly breaks the sinful spine,

I will pay this, my awful debt,

Between Heaven’s hard law and Hell’s dark threat.

 

Raise I the knife to pierce this heart,

And rid the world of my sin’s part,

I cast beneath Justice’s feet,

My heart crying, soon ne’r more to speak,

My soul throbbing with words repeat,

If Justice paid, and Mercy known,

Could only mingle in my sentence own.

 

If blood, not mine, could hide the sin,

Lift the sentence my heart is in,

If Justice fell on another,

To purge my soul, my sins cover,

Could mercy, then, be my lover?

But, think I, that joy could ne’r be,

Could justice demand what mercy set free?

 

I lift the blade beneath star’s light,

And nearer still, the moon shines bright,

And just before I drive that blade,

To quench the debt of sins unpaid,

And carry out the sentence made,

I see upon the knife I hold,

The blood, not mine, of Being untold.

 

Who is this Being, that takes the part,

This blade was to wring in my heart?

Could it be that the knife for mine,

Was drove within a heart Devine?

And could God’s mercy, pure, benign,

Be granted such a one as me,

Who being shackled once, is now set free.

 

The moon beyond all mortal climb,

The stars in Heaven’s holy shrine,

Could ne’r be reached by one as I,

Who could not fly to reach the sky,

Heaven’s song within my soul’s cry,

Which always was beyond my grasp,

Now descends to hold me within God’s clasp.

 

And I find in my mortal being,

Which lacked the strength from sin to flee,

Eternity greater than time,

That now throbs within heart of mine,

Atop the hill I could not climb,

And I taste what will be my own,

Heaven’s purity, though before unknown.

 

Paid now was God’s own justice claim,

Mercy extended to my name,

Judge sentenced Himself for my crime,

Shackled Himself in bonds of time,

Purity clothed in sin’s dark grime,

That I may wear his robes unknown,

And declare I, His holiness my own.

Soli Deo Gloria,