Imagine a new natural philosophy;
I hardly know what I am asking for;
Far-off echoes, that primeval sense,
With blood and sap, Man’s pre-historic piety,
Continually conscious and continually…
Alive, alive and growing like a tree
And trees as dryads, or as beautiful,
The bleeding trees in Virgil and in Spenser
The tree of knowledge and the tree of life
Growing together, that great ritual
Pattern of nature, beauties branching out
The cosmic order, ceremonial,
Regenerate science, seeing from within…
To participate is to be truly human.
Malcolm Guite 
I recently came across a lecture of yours on youtube on C.S. Lewis and you end with this poem. The Abolition of Man was the first Lewis book I read on my own during break at college (the Chronicles of Narnia were read to me as a child) and have been reading him ever since. Love this poem! An artist name Brooke Frasier has tries something similar with Lewis put to music and a rock band named Thrice has written a song called The Abolition of Man inspired by the boom. Thank you very much for this!
Book*
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I listened to this at the end of a CBC ideas episode. I’m a Computer Engineer; one whose professional and personal interests are concerned with technology, product, systems and people and how they interconnect. I’m not ashamed to say that the blood drained from my face and I felt the room swirl around me as these words rolled past my ears and echoed in vacant parts of my soul I never knew I possessed.
I don’t know why this affected me so deeply, but thank you. You’ve awoken something in me. I am going to find it out.
Thanks Craig I’m glad the poem deepened things for you ‘a felt change if consciousness’ (Barfield)
Hi Malcolm.
I heard you recite this poem on Ideas on CBC radio. I like the sort of train of thought Lewis puts out in his writings. When I copied it onto a word document from the broadcast, what I heard looked more like this:
Imagine
Imagine a new natural philosophy
I hardly know what I am asking for
Far off echoes
That primeval sense with blood and sap
Man’s prehistoric piety
Continually conscious, continually alive
Alive and growing like a tree
And trees as giants or as beautiful
The bleeding trees in Virgil and in Spencer
The tree of knowledge and the tree of life growing together
That great ritual pattern of nature
Beauty’s branching out
The cosmic order,
ceremonial,
regenerate science,
seeing from within
To participate is to be truly human
Thought you might find this interesting how what was heard might differ from what you wrote.
Thanks.
God Bless!