"Shadows"--D.H. Lawrence
Craig Smith
"Shadows"? The oft-quoted snippet is seen everywhere---
And if tonight my soul
may find her peace in sleep,
and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake
like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God,
and new-created.
---but I know it was a longer poem. I used to have it in a
particular collection of poetry, but I think (at least I hope)
it's in storage somewhere, and I can't get to it, or find the
entire poem online.
Many people quote it in reference to sleep, when it's really a
very poignant and comforting piece about dying.
Can anyone help with the complete poem?
Many thanks,
.:. Craig
William C. Waterhouse
> Does anyone have the complete text to D.H. Lawrence's poem
> "Shadows"? The oft-quoted snippet is seen everywhere---
>
> And if tonight my soul
> may find her peace in sleep,
Shadows
And if tonight my soul may find her peace
in sleep, and sink in good oblivion,
and in the morning wake like a new-opened flower
then I have been dipped again in God, and new-created.
And if, as weeks go round, in the dark of the moon
my spirit darkens and goes out, and soft strange gloom
pervades my movements and my thoughts and words
then I shall know that I am walking still
with God, we are close together in the moon's shadow.
And if, as autumn deepens and darkens
I feel the pain of falling leaves, and stems that break in storms
and trouble and dissolution and distress
and then the softness of deep shadows folding, folding
around my soul and spirit, around my lips
so sweet, like a swoon, or more like the drowse of a low, sad song
singing darker than the nightingale, on, on to the solstice
and the silence of short days, the silence of the year, the shadow,
then I shall know that my life is moving still
with the dark earth, and drenched
with the deep oblivion of earth's lapse and renewal.
And if, in the changing phases of man's life
I fall in sickness and in misery
my wrists seem broken and my heart seems dead
and strength is gone, and my life
is only the leavings of a life:
And still, among it all, snatches of lovely oblivion, and snatches of renewal
odd, wintry flowers upon the withered stem, yet new, strange flowers
such as my life has not brought forth before, new blossoms of me -
Then I must know that still
I am in the hands of the unknown God,
he is breaking me down to his own oblivion
to send me forth on a new morning, a new man.
--- D. H. Lawrence (from _Last Poems_)
William C. Waterhouse
Penn State
tuqaah...@gmail.com
David C Kifer
--
Dave
"Tam multi libri, tam breve tempus!"
(Et brevis pecunia.) [Et breve spatium.]