Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 865
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.
The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.
And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can’t you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.
III
And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?
With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?
Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
ever a quietus make?
IV
O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!
How can we this, our own quietus, make?
V
Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.
And die the death, the long and painful death
that lies between the old self and the new.
Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
already our souls are oozing through the exit
of the cruel bruise.
Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
already the flood is upon us.
Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
for the dark flight down oblivion.
VI
Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.
We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.
We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
and our strength leaves us,
and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.
VII
We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.
A little ship, with oars and food
and little dishes, and all accoutrements
fitting and ready for the departing soul.
Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
with its store of food and little cooking pans
and change of clothes,
upon the flood’s black waste
upon the waters of the end
upon the sea of death, where still we sail
darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.
There is no port, there is nowhere to go
only the deepening blackness darkening still
blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
darkness at one with darkness, up and down
and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more
and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
She is gone! gone! and yet
somewhere she is there.
Nowhere!
VIII
And everything is gone, the body is gone
completely under, gone, entirely gone.
The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
between them the little ship
is gone
It is the end, it is oblivion.
IX
And yet out of eternity a thread
separates itself on the blackness,
a horizontal thread
that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.
Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
A little higher?
Ah wait, wait, for there’s the dawn,
the cruel dawn of coming back to life
out of oblivion
Wait, wait, the little ship
drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey
of a flood-dawn.
Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.
A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.
X
The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
emerges strange and lovely.
And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
on the pink flood,
and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
filling the heart with peace.
Swings the heart renewed with peace
even of oblivion.
Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!
for you will need it.
For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.
DIFFICULT DEATH
IT is not easy to die, O it is not easy
to die the death.
For death comes when he will
not when we will him.
And we can be dying, dying, dying
and longing utterly to die
yet death will not come.
So build your ship of death, and let the soul drift
to dark oblivion.
Maybe life is still our portion
after the bitter passage of oblivion.
ALL SOULS’ DAY
BE careful, then, and be gentle about death.
For it is hard to die, it is difficult to go through
the door, even when it opens.
And the poor dead, when they have left the walled
and silvery city of the now hopeless body
where are they to go, Oh where are they to go?
They linger in the shadow of the earth.
The earth’s long conical shadow is full of souls
that cannot find the way across the sea of change.
Be kind, Oh be kind to your dead
and give them a little encouragement
and help them to build their little ship of death
For the soul has a long, long journey after death
to the sweet home of pure oblivion.
Each needs a little ship, a little ship
and the proper store of meal for the longest journey.
Oh, from out of your heart
provide for your dead once more, equip them
like departing mariners, lovingly.
THE HOUSELESS DEAD
On pity the dead that are dead, but cannot take
the journey, still they moan and beat
against the silvery adamant walls of life’s exclusive city.
Oh pity the dead that were ousted out of life
all unequipped to take the long, long voyage.
Gaunt, gaunt they crowd the grey mud-beaches of shadow
that intervene between the final sea
and the white shores of life.
The poor gaunt dead that cannot die
into the distance with receding oars,
but must roam like outcast dogs on the margins of life!
Oh think of them, and encourage them to build
the bark of their deliverance from the dilemma
of non-existence to far oblivion.
BEWARE THE UNHAPPY DEAD!
BEWARE the unhappy dead thrust out of life
unready, unprepared, unwilling, unable
to continue on the longest journey.
Oh, now as November draws near
the grey, grey reaches of earth’s shadow,
the long mean marginal stretches of our existence
are crowded with lost souls, the uneasy dead
that cannot embark on the slinking sea beyond.
Oh, now they moan and throng in anger, and press back
through breaches in the walls of this our by-no-means im —
pregnable existence
seeking their old haunts with cold ghostly rage
old haunts, old habitats, old hearths,
old places of sweet life from which they are thrust out
and can but haunt in disembodied rage.
Oh, but beware, beware the angry dead.
Who knows, who knows how much our modern woe
is due to the angry unappeased dead
that were thrust out of life, and now come back at us
malignant, malignant, for we will not succour them.
Oh, on this day for the dead, now November is here
set a place for the dead, with a cushion and soft seat
and put a plate, and put a wine-glass out
and serve the best of food, the fondest wine
for your dead, your unseen dead, and with your hearts
speak with them and give them peace and do them honour.
Or else beware their angry presence, now
within your walls, within your very heart.
Oh, they can lay you waste, the angry dead.
Perhaps even now you are suffering from the havoc they make
unknown within your breast and your deadened loins.
AFTER ALL SAINTS’ DAY
WRAPPED in the dark-red mantle of warm memories
the little, slender soul sits swiftly down, and takes the oars
and draws away, away, towards dark depths
wafting with warm love from still-living hearts
breathing on his small frail sail, and helping him on
to the fathomless deeps ahead, far, far from the grey shores
of marginal existence.
SONG OF DEATH
SING the song of death, O sing it!
for without the song of death, the song of life
becomes pointless and silly.
Sing then the song of death, and the longest journey
and what the soul takes with him, and what he leaves behind,
and how he enters fold after fold of deepening darkness
for the cosmos even in death is like a dark whorled shell
whose whorls fold round to the core of soundless silence and
pivotal oblivion
where the soul comes at last, and has utter peace.
Sing then the core of dark and absolute
oblivion where the soul at last is lost
in utter peace.
Sing the song of death, O sing it!
THE END, THE BEGINNING
IF there were not an utter and absolute dark
of silence and sheer oblivion
at the core of everything,
how terrible the sun would be,
how ghastly it would be to strike a match, and make a light.
But the very sun himself is pivoted
upon a core of pure oblivion,
so is a candle, even as a match.
And if there were not an absolute, utter forgetting
and a ceasing to know, a perfect ceasing to know
and a silent, sheer cessation of all awareness
how terrible life would be!
how terrible it would be to think and know, to have con- sciousness!
But dipped, once dipped in dark oblivion
the soul has peace, inward and lovely peace.
SLEEP
SLEEP is the shadow of death, but not only that.
Sleep is a hint of lovely oblivion.
When I am gone, completely lapsed and gone
and healed from all this ache of being.
SLEEP AND WAKING
IN sleep I am not, I am gone
I am given up.
And nothing in the world is lovelier than sleep,
dark, dreamless sleep, in deep oblivion!
Nothing in life is quite so good as this.
Yet there is waking from the soundest sleep,
waking, and waking new.
Did you sleep well?
Ah yes, the sleep of God!
The world is created afresh.
FATIGUE
MY soul has had a long, hard day
she is tired,
she is seeking her oblivion.
O, and in the world
there is no place for the soul to find her oblivion
the after darkness of her peace,
for man has killed the silence of the earth
and ravished all the peaceful oblivious places
where the angels used to alight.
FORGET
To be able to forget is to be able to yield
to God who dwells in deep oblivion.
Only in sheer oblivion are we with God.
For when we know in full, we have left off knowing.
KNOW-ALL
MAN knows nothing
till he knows how not-to-know.
And the greatest of teachers will tell you:
The end of all knowledge is oblivion
sweet, dark oblivion, when I cease
even from myself, and am consummated.
TABERNACLE
COME, let us build a temple to oblivion
with seven veils, and an innermost
Holy of Holies of sheer oblivion.
And there oblivion dwells, and the silent soul
may sink into god at last, having passed the veils.
But any one who shall ascribe attributes to god or oblivion
let him be cast out, for blasphemy.
For god is a deeper forgetting far than sleep
and all description is a blasphemy.
TEMPLES
OH, what we want on earth
is centres here and there of silence and forgetting
where we may cease from knowing, and, as far as we know,
may cease from being
in the sweet wholeness of oblivion.
SHADOWS
AND if to-night 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 now the moon’s in 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.
CHANGE
Do you think it is easy to change?
Ah, it is very hard to change and be different.
It means passing through the waters of oblivion.
PHOENIX
ARE you willing to be sponged out, erased, cancelled,
made nothing?
Are you willing to be made nothing?
dipped into oblivion?
If not, you will never really change.
The phoenix renews her youth
only when she is burnt, burnt alive, burnt down
to hot and flocculent ash.
Then the small stirring of a new small bub in the nest
with strands of down like floating ash
Shows that she is renewing her youth like the eagle
Immortal bird.
MORE PANSIES
CONTENTS
IMAGE-MAKING LOVE
PEOPLE
DESIRE
TO A CERTAIN FRIEND
THE EMOTIONAL FRIEND
CORRESPONDENCE IN AFTER YEARS
THE EGOISTS
CHIMAERA
ULTIMATE REALITY
SPHINX
INTIMATES
TRUE LOVE AT LAST
ANDRAITX — POMEGRANATE FLOWERS
I DARE DO ALL
BATTLE OF LIFE
THERE ARE TOO MANY PEOPLE
THE HEART OF MAN
MORAL CLOTHING
BEHAVIOUR
THE HOSTILE SUN
THE CHURCH
THE PROTESTANT CHURCHES
LONELINESS
THE UPROOTED
DELIGHT OF BEING ALONE
REFUSED FRIENDSHIP
FUTURE RELATIONSHIPS
FUTURE RELIGION
FUTURE STATES
FUTURE WAR
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
INITIATION DEGREES
UNHAPPY SOULS
FULL LIFE
PEOPLE WHO CARE
