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

Today, we look at Hopkins’s poem “The Caged Skylark” and examine what its vision of a caged bird has to say about the spirit and resurrection of man.

As a dare-gale skylark scanted in a dull cage,

Man's mounting spirit in his bone-house, mean house, dwells —

That bird beyond the remembering his free fells;

This in drudgery, day-labouring-out life's age.

Though aloft on turf or perch or poor low stage

Both sing sometímes the sweetest, sweetest spells,

Yet both droop deadly sómetimes in their cells

Or wring their barriers in bursts of fear or rage.

Not that the sweet-fowl, song-fowl, needs no rest —

Why, hear him, hear him babble & drop down to his nest,

But his own nest, wild nest, no prison.

Man's spirit will be flesh-bound, when found at best,

But uncumberèd: meadow-down is not distressed

For a rainbow footing it nor he for his bónes rísen.

In our last installment of Lewis’s “Main Street,” we witness Carol’s dramatic coming to terms with the nature of her struggle. In this conversation with a grizzled suffragette, she is able to finally understand herself and her struggle thoroughly enough to get past her distaste for Main Street. She even discovers something about love in the process. Fancy that!

Today we’re taking a look at Wallace Stevens’s thorny but brilliant 1934 poem. “Idea of Order” explores ideas of poetry, chaos and order, and the act of creation itself. Be warned: these are the sorts of poems that bear rereading!

In our excerpt today, Carol has finally realized that Main Street will never be able to offer her what she wants. In an argument with her husband, she is forced to choose between becoming a mediocre Gopher Prairie resident, or following through with her ideals and ambitions.

In her effort to get over the “Village Virus,” Carol has put together a drama club with the mission of punching through the Gopher Prairie mental malaise. But when the actors finally take to the stage, Carol realizes exactly the strength of the opponent she’s up against. Will she be able to finally start making the change she’s dreamt of, or will she succumb to the humbling of smalltown American mediocrity?

Her other schemes having failed, but not yet giving up hope, Carol, inspired by a good time out with friends and the magical landscape, decides to start a drama club. Lewis crystallizes her resolve in luscious winter descriptions.

Lewis gives two views of the same setting, contrasting two very differnet personalities.