Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 869
fragrance of roses in a stale stink of lies
rose-leaves to bewilder the clever fools
and rose-briars to strangle the machine.
THE GULF
Now again and now for ever breaks the great illusion
of human oneness.
Sons of earth, sons of fire, sons of air and water
sons of the living elements, sons of the unthinking gods,
women, women the same.
And then the hordes of the spawn of the machine
the hordes of the ego-centric, the robots.
For listen! the ego-centric self is the same as the machine
the ego running in its own complex and disconnected notion
using all life only as power, as an engine uses steam or gas
powers to repeat its own ego-centric motions
this is the machine incarnate:
and the robot is the machine incarnate
and the slave is the machine incarnate
and the hopeless inferior, he is the machine incarnate
an engine of flesh, useless unless he is a tool
of other men.
The great industrialists know it.
Mr Ford knows it.
The brain of the machine knows the limbs and trunk of the machine.
But oh, men, men still unmechanised,
sons of the elements and the unspeaking gods
sons of the wind and rain, sons of the fire and rock
what are you going to do, entangled among all the engines
Behold the gulf, impassable
between machine-spawn, myriads
mechanical and intellectual,
and the sons of men, with the wind and the fire of life
in their faces, and motion never mechanical in their limbs.
THE CROSS
BEHOLD your Cross, Christians!
With the upright division into sex
men on this side, women on that side
without any division into inferiority and superiority
only differences,
divided in the mystic, tangible and intangible difference.
And then, truth much more bitter to accept,
the horizontal division of mankind
into that which is below the level, and that which is above. .
That which is truly man, and that which is robot,
the ego-bound.
On this cross of division, division into sex
division into slave and freeman
Christ, the human consciousness
was crucified
to set all men free
to make all men noble
to wipe away the mystic barriers of sex.
In vain, in vain, in vain, oh vastly in vain
this horrific crucifixion.
Now risen Man and risen lord
risen from the dead, after this crucifixion
must learn the supreme lesson —
That sex is an eternal upright division, before which we must bow
and live in the acceptance of it,
it can never be wiped out;
the gods that made us are greater than our consciousness
and we, we are mostly unexplored hinterland
and our consciousness is a spot of light in a great but living darkness.
And then, risen, we must learn the most cruel lesson
of the horizontal division of mankind
the eternal division between the base and the beautiful.
The base, those that are below the bar of the cross
the small ones, ego-bound, little machines running in an
enclosed circle of self
the inferiors.
The inferiors, the inferiors, there they are, in hordes.
And they will destroy all, unless they are made to submit
and to serve that which is flamey or pure and watery or swift
wind or sound ringing rock
that which is elemental and of the substantial gods in man.
Mankind is lost and lost forever
unless men swiftly divide again, and the base are thrust down
into service, like the roots of trees.
For to-day, the base, the robots sit on the thrones of the world
in all the high places, and they are masters of industry
and rulers of millions of robots,being robots themselves, the same
only the brainy sort:
But brainy robot, or aesthetic robot, or merely muscular or
mechanical robot
it is all the same
less than real men, inferiors, inferiors.
How then are the few men, men of the wind and rain
men of the fire and rock, how are they going to come forth
from the robot mass of rich and poor, mechanical ego-bound myriads?
Life will find a way.
Life always finds a way.
Only. Oh man, stare, stare into the gulf
between you and the robot-hordes, misnamed your fellow-men.
FELLOW-MEN
A FEW are my fellow-men
a few, only a few:
the mass are not.
The mass are not my fellow-men
I repudiate them as such.
Let them serve.
THE SIGHT OF GOD
MEN are not alike in the sight of God
Oh no, oh no!
Men are anything but alike in the sight of God.
In the sight of God and the unknown gods
most men don’t matter at all, any more than ants matter to men:
only the few, the very few, matter in the sight of God, and the
living substantial gods.
SOULS TO SAVE
You tell me every man has a soul to save?
I tell you, not one man in a thousand has even a soul to lose.
The automat has no soul to lose
so it can’t have one to save.
WHEN MOST MEN DIE
WHEN most men die, to-day,
when most women die
it is merely a machine breaks down
and can’t be mended.
HOLD BACK!
OH men, living men, vivid men, ocean and fire
don’t give any more life to the machines!
Draw it away, draw it away, for these horrible machine-people
can’t live any more, except for a spell, when the living cease
to accept them as brothers
and give them life.
Machines of iron must be tended by hands of flesh
and robots must have encouragement from men of the vivid life
or they break down.
Oh men of life and of living
withdraw, withdraw your flow
from the grinning and insatiable robots.
IMPULSE
You can count on anything, but you can’t count on impulse.
You can’t even count on the mechanical impulse for money
and motor-cars
which rules the robot-classes and the robot-masses, now.
Once disillusion falls on living men, and they feel the illusion
ebb away
the illusion of mankind, the illusion of a hopeful future for
these masses and classes of men
once disillusion falls on living men, and illusion of brotherhood
and hope bleeds right away,
Then, then comes the great moment of choice.
Oh, life is nothing if not choice.
And that which is choice alone matters.
In the moment of choice, the soul rolls back
away from the robot-classes and the robot-masses
and withdraws itself, and recognises a flower, or the morning- star
but utterly fails to recognise any more the grey rat-hordes of
classes and masses.
And then, when the soul of living men repudiates them
then at once the impulse of the greedy classes and masses
breaks down.
and a chaos of impulse supervenes
in which is heard the crashing splinter of machines
and the dull breaking of bones.
For the robot classes and masses are only kept sane
by the kindness of living women and men.
Now living women and men are threatened with extinction
and the time has come to cease to be kind any more
to the robot classes and masses.
Oh, if the huge tree dies
save some shoots, some lovely flowering shoots
to graft on another tree.
Trees raised from seed have wild and bitter fruits
they need grafting:
and even the loveliest flowers, you must graft them on a new stock.
MEN LIKE GODS
MEN wanted to be like gods
so they became like machines
and now even they’re not satisfied.
MEN AND MACHINES
MAN invented the machine
and now the machine has invented man.
God the Father is a dynamo
and God the Son a talking radio
and God the Holy Ghost is gas that keeps it all going.
And men have perforce to be little dynamos
and little talking radios
and the human spirit is so much gas, to keep it all going.
Man invented the machine
so now the machine has invented man.
MASSES AND CLASSES
THERE are masses, and there are classes
but the machine it is that has invented them both.
The classes are so superior
because they are the brains of the machine.
And the masses are also superior
because they are the arms and legs of the machine.
An old Frenchman uttered the truism:
God cannot do without me!
Certainly the god in the machine cannot!
It has all the time to be soothed and consoled by the hands
of life.
GIVE US THE THEBAID
MODERN society is a mill
that grinds life very small.
The upper millstone of the robot-classes,
the lower millstone of the robot-masses,
and between them, the last living human beings
being ground exceeding small.
Turn away, O turn away, man of flesh!
Slip out, O slip out from between the millstones
extract and extricate yourself
and hide in your own wild Thebaid.
Then let the millstones grind, for they cannot stop grinding,
so let them grind
without grist.
Let them grind on one another, upper-class robot weight upon
lower-class robot weight
till they grow hot, and burst, as even stone can explode.
SIDE-STEP, O SONS OF MEN!
SONS of men, from the wombs of wistful women,
not piston-mechanical-begotten,
sons of men, with the wondering eyes of life
hark! hark! step aside silently and swiftly.
The machine has got you, is turning you round and round
and confusing you, and feeding itself on your life.
Softly, subtly, secretly, in soul first, then in spirit, then in body
slip aside, slip out
from the entanglement of the giggling machine
that sprawls across the earth in iron imbecility.
Softly, subtly, secretly, saying nothing
step aside, step out of it, it is eating you up,
O step aside, with decision, sons of men, with decision.
ON AND ON AND ON
THE machine will run on and on and on —
then let it!
Oh, never fight the machine,
nor its mechanised robots, robot classes and masses!
Lift never a finger against them, that they can see,
Let them run on and on and on —
It is their heaven and their doom.
OH WONDERFUL MACHINE!
OH wonderful machine, so self-sufficient, so sufficient unto yourself!
You who have no feeling of the moon as she changes her quarters!
You who don’t hear the sea’s uneasiness!
You to whom the sun is merely something that makes the
thermometer rise!
Oh wonderful machine, you are man’s idea of godliness,
you who feel nothing, who know nothing, who run on absolved
from any other connection!
Oh you godly and smooth machine, spinning on in your own
Nirvana,
turning the blue wheels of your own heaven
almighty machine
how is it you have to be looked after by some knock-kneed wretch
at two pounds a week?
Oh great god of the machine
what lousy archangels and angels you have to surround yourself with!
And you can’t possibly do without them!
BUT I SAY UNTO YOU: LOVE ONE ANOTHER
OH I have loved my fellow-men —
and lived to learn they are neither fellow nor men
but machine-robots.
Oh I have loved the working class
where I was born,
and lived to see them spawn into machine-robots
in the hot-beds of the board-schools and the film.
Oh how I loved the thought of thoughtful people
gentle and refined,
and lived to find out
that their last thought was money
and their last refinement bluff, a hate disguised,
and one trapped one’s fingers in their brassy, polished works!
LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR
I LOVE my neighbour but
are these things my neighbours?
these two-legged things that walk and talk
and eat and cachinnate, and even seem to smile,
seem to smile, ye gods!
Am I told that these things are my neighbours?
All I can say is Nay! nay! nay! nay!
AS THYSELF!
SUPPOSING I say: dogs are my neighbours
I will love dogs as myself!
Then gradually I approximate to the dogs,
wriggle and wag and slaver, and get the mentality of a dog!
This I call a shocking humiliation.
The same with my robot neighbours.
If I try loving them, I fall into their robot jig-jig-jig
their robot cachinnation comes rattling out of my throat —
and I had better even have approximated to the dog.
Who then, O Jesus, is my neighbour?
If you point me to that fat money-smelling man in a motor-car,
or that hard-boiled young woman beside him
I shall have to refuse entirely to accept either of them.
My neighbour is not the man in the street, and never was:
he jigs along in the imbecile cruelty of the machine
and is implacable.
My neighbour, O my neighbour!
Occasionally I see him, silent, a little wondering
with his ears pricked and his body wincing
threading his way among the robot machine-people.
0 O my neighbour
sometimes I see her, like a flower, nodding her way and shrinking
from the robot contact on every hand!
How can that be my neighbour
which I shrink from!
LONELY, LONESOME, LONEY — O!
WHEN I hear somebody complain of being lonely
or, in American, lonesome
I really wonder and wonder what they mean.
Do they mean they are a great deal alone?
But what is lovelier than to be alone?
escaping the petrol fumes of human conversation
and the exhaust-smell of people
and be alone!
Be alone, and feel the trees silently growing.
Be alone, and see the moonlight outside, white and busy and silent.
Be quite alone, and feel the living cosmos softly rocking
soothing and restoring and healing.
Soothed, restored and healed
when I am alone with the silent great cosmos
and there is no grating of people with their presences gnawing
at the stillness of the air.
TREES IN THE GARDEN
AH in the thunder air
how still the trees are!
And the lime-tree, lovely and tall, every leaf silent
hardly looses even a last breath of perfume.
And the ghostly, creamy coloured little tree of leaves
white, ivory white among the rambling greens
how evanescent, variegated elder, she hesitates on the green grass
as if, in another moment, she would disappear
with all her grace of foam!
And the larch that is only a column, it goes up too tall to see:
and the balsam-pines that are blue with the grey-blue blueness
of things from the sea,
and the young copper beech, its leaves red-rosey at the ends
how still they are together, they stand so still
in the thunder air, all strangers to one another
as the green grass glows upwards, strangers in the garden.
Lichtentnl.
STORM IN THE BLACK FOREST
Now it is almost night, from the bronzey soft sky
jugfull after jugfull of pure white liquid fire, bright white
tipples over and spills down,
and is gone
and gold-bronze flutters beat through the thick upper air.
And as the electric liquid pours out, sometimes
a still brighter white snake wriggles among it, spilled
and tumbling wriggling down the sky:
