Today, we’ll be talking about DH Lawrence’s “Shadows,” which he wrote shortly before his death. “Shadows” was written by the poet in anticipation of his death, and looks forward to a time of peace and painlessness, while also bearing witness to the writer’s tremendous faith and courage as he neared the end of his life.

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 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