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    Windows of Night
    Windows of Night
    Windows of Night
    Ebook153 pages1 hour

    Windows of Night

    By Charles Williams

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    About this ebook

    Charles Williams was one of the finest -- not to mention one of the most unusual -- theologians of the twentieth century. His mysticism is palpable -- the unseen world interpenetrates ours at every point, and spiritual exchange occurs all the time, unseen and largely unlooked for. His novels are legend, his poetry profound, and as a member of the Inklings, he contributed to the mythopoetic revival in contemporary culture.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJohn R. Mabry
    Release dateMar 30, 2016
    ISBN9781940671215
    Windows of Night
    Author

    Charles Williams

    Charles Williams (1909–1975) was one of the preeminent authors of American crime fiction. Born in Texas, he dropped out of high school to enlist in the US Merchant Marine, serving for ten years before leaving to work in the electronics industry. At the end of World War II, Williams began writing fiction while living in San Francisco. The success of his backwoods noir Hill Girl (1951) allowed him to quit his job and write fulltime. Williams’s clean and somewhat casual narrative style distinguishes his novels—which range from hard-boiled, small-town noir to suspense thrillers set at sea and in the Deep South. Although originally published by pulp fiction houses, his work won great critical acclaim, with Hell Hath No Fury (1953) becoming the first paperback original to be reviewed by legendary New York Times critic Anthony Boucher. Many of his novels were adapted for the screen, such as Dead Calm (published in 1963) and Don’t Just Stand There! (published in 1966), for which Williams wrote the screenplay. Williams died in California in 1975. 

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      Book preview

      Windows of Night - Charles Williams

      Prelude

      (TO H. S. M.)

      WHEN from the house where I was nursed

      Into the outer world I first

      With doubtful footing went,

      I saw in a bewildered earth

      Nor nights of peace nor days of mirth

      Nor twilights of content.

      All the unhappiness of youth

      I knew, and knew it less than truth,

      And felt beneath me move

      The quaking ground whereon I trod,

      Spoiling the towers of every god,

      And all the doors of love.

      I saw the blinding tyrants smite

      Their serving-folk with death or night

      For avarice or whim;

      The dancing heavens go lightly by

      Above the plague pits, huddled high

      With corpses to the brim.

      I saw, above all purpose set,

      The fitful poised Almighty threat

      Float sadly in the air,

      Which, though but few it seemed to strike

      With madness, cancer, and their like,

      Yet taught to all despair.

      I knew the last fear—lest there hid

      In Death’s unopened pyramid

      Only Life’s self abhorred:

      But O amid such darkening gloom

      What fantasy decreed my doom

      Beneath a courteous lord?

      All things I feared—and lo on me

      The world’s accustomed irony,

      Grown swiftly gracious, smiled:

      Among the starving I was fed,

      Into security was led,

      And guarded from the wild.

      Yet, for all favours of its past,

      How should I trust Life’s grace to last?

      Only, the chance of ill

      More distant and more doubtful runs

      Afar from me, since all my suns

      Are blest with your goodwill.

      And what more joys, what friendships new,

      Had happily their source in you!

      As when we left the town,

      And shy and laughing and amazed

      To hear myself by strangers praised,

      We took the road to Downe:

      As London, my own city, known

      For a mere torment of great stone

      By many a wandering wit,

      Re-risen for me, stood in the void

      Of my desire, and was enjoyed,

      For you were part of it.

      In one same spring your name and hers,

      The world’s and heaven’s best messengers,

      Smote first my careless ears:

      Who knew not then what springs should build

      About me, from those names fulfilled,

      A shelter for my years.

      Those names fulfilled!—Of the last End,

      The Mystery that hath for friend

      All governments of peace,

      What pious dream hath more of fame

      Than each admired prophetic name,

      Sounding it without cease?

      Faint though I fall in ways of ill,

      I see the shining glory still

      In the world’s fair employ,

      Creation marvellously wrought

      To one sole multitudinous thought,

      The Day, the Morning Joy.

      And bitter though within me hate

      Wars with inexorable Fate,

      To wreck its rich delight,

      I know the hinted close of dawn,

      The quenched activities withdrawn,

      The Evening Joy, the Night.

      But her a hundred sonnets praise,

      And all the friends who tread my ways

      Have each their share of song;

      Yet, sir, my world must lack its due

      Accomplishment, except to you

      Some period may belong.

      Poets by generations count

      Their lives, and sum the full amount

      In centuries; but I,

      Whom no kind Muse hath brought to name

      Within the sanctuary of Fame,

      Before my death must die.

      On many a mightier shield than mine

      Your quartered arms shall they design

      Who keep the heraldic scrolls

      Of Art; but though the future paints

      You in the list of their All Saints,

      You will not scorn All Souls?

      Then, maugre what the wise allow,

      Under your titles be I now

      Of this small freehold seised;

      And let me to my doubtful heart

      Profess a virtue in my art,

      For you were sometimes pleased.

      These meditations, since your care

      Sustains unharmed my household stair,

      And the peace where they grow,

      Take, the poor symbols of your due;

      All verse, and more than verse, to you,

      With her and God, I owe.

      Sleep

      NOW industry is ended; now, kind sleep,

      Only be pleased to be not overswift,

      But let our loosed and drowsy bodies keep

      A little taste of exile; slowly sift

      Night’s heavier from the airy thoughts of day,

      And at the point of our surrender make

      Some new, delicious, ever-shorter stay;

      Slowly to sleep is good, swiftly to wake.

      Ah! coveted Joy, too absolute in content

      To be exchanged for immortality,

      How dost thou lure us from our late consent

      And our night prayers to light and ecstasy,

      Tempting us now, with our last waking breath,

      To ask no more, but only this, of death.

      The Window

      PUT out the candles, friend, while I unclose

      The window of our thought upon the night,

      Time, and the world, where London, light by light,

      Twinkles away into an unknown end

      And darkness at the edge of Being flows;

      Upon the slope, which at this sill begins

      But there is lost in what black origins!

      Put out the lights, put out the candles, friend:

      No gleam upon the guessed horizon throws

      Any small flaming wick of faith or hope,

      For studies meet, nor on the ragged slope,

      Which here the intent Imagination knows.

      Out of the black and vacant heaven looks down

      An everlasting silence, here touched white

      With borrowed flame to the fantastic site

      Of mirrored cities and reflected streets.

      Turn, turn your eyes! this is man’s topmost town,

      Close-set beneath us: there is Thames, and here,

      Where the glow gathers deepest, Westminster;

      District on district thrust, while each repeats

      Some huge word man’s devising mind hath known,

      Some station upon his long toil, which we

      Here dimly from his first beginning see,

      But not his end, nor whereby helped or thrown.

      The window of our nature opens: see,

      In the vast vision of our conscious mind,

      A living mud bubbles into mankind

      Momently, and each moment from the mud

      Shapes yet another surge of anarchy.

      Life wakes and heaves and in a babble of cries

      Swarms out of earth a little, and so dies

      And is swallowed under life; what streaks of blood

      Gleam under

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