D. H. Lawrence
I
1.1 Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
1.2 and the long journey towards oblivion.
1.3 The apples falling like great drops of dew
1.4 to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.
1.5 And it is time to go, to bid farewell
1.6 to one's own self, and find an exit
1.7 from the fallen self.
II
1.8 Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
1.9 O build your ship of death, for you will need it.
1.10 The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
1.11 thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.
1.12 And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
1.13 Ah! can't you smell it?
1.14 And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
1.15 finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
1.16 that blows upon it through the orifices.
III
1.17 And can a man his own quietus make
1.18 with a bare bodkin?
1.19 With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
1.20 a bruise or break of exit for his life;
1.21 but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?
1.22 Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
1.23 ever a quietus make?
IV
1.24 O let us talk of quiet that we know,
1.25 that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
1.26 of a strong heart at peace!
1.27 How can we this, our own quietus, make?
V
1.28 Build then the ship of death, for you must take
1.29 the longest journey, to oblivion.
1.30 And die the death, the long and painful death
1.31 that lies between the old self and the new.
1.32 Already our bodies are fallen, bruised, badly bruised,
1.33 already our souls are oozing through the exit
1.34 of the cruel bruise.
1.35 Already the dark and endless ocean of the end
1.36 is washing in through the breaches of our wounds,
1.37 Already the flood is upon us.
1.38 Oh build your ship of death, your little ark
1.39 and furnish it with food, with little cakes, and wine
1.40 for the dark flight down oblivion.
VI
1.41 Piecemeal the body dies, and the timid soul
1.42 has her footing washed away, as the dark flood rises.
1.43 We are dying, we are dying, we are all of us dying
1.44 and nothing will stay the death-flood rising within us
1.45 and soon it will rise on the world, on the outside world.
1.46 We are dying, we are dying, piecemeal our bodies are dying
1.47 and our strength leaves us,
1.48 and our soul cowers naked in the dark rain over the flood,
1.49 cowering in the last branches of the tree of our life.
VII
1.50 We are dying, we are dying, so all we can do
1.51 is now to be willing to die, and to build the ship
1.52 of death to carry the soul on the longest journey.
1.53 A little ship, with oars and food
1.54 and little dishes, and all accoutrements
1.55 fitting and ready for the departing soul.
1.56 Now launch the small ship, now as the body dies
1.57 and life departs, launch out, the fragile soul
1.58 in the fragile ship of courage, the ark of faith
1.59 with its store of food and little cooking pans
1.60 and change of clothes,
1.61 upon the flood's black waste
1.62 upon the waters of the end
1.63 upon the sea of death, where still we sail
1.64 darkly, for we cannot steer, and have no port.
1.65 There is no port, there is nowhere to go
1.66 only the deepening blackness darkening still
1.67 blacker upon the soundless, ungurgling flood
1.68 darkness at one with darkness, up and down
1.69 and sideways utterly dark, so there is no direction any more
1.70 and the little ship is there; yet she is gone.
1.71 She is not seen, for there is nothing to see her by.
1.72 She is gone! gone! and yet
1.73 somewhere she is there.
1.74 Nowhere!
VIII
1.75 And everything is gone, the body is gone
1.76 completely under, gone, entirely gone.
1.77 The upper darkness is heavy as the lower,
1.78 between them the little ship
1.79 is gone
1.80 It is the end, it is oblivion.
IX
1.81 And yet out of eternity a thread
1.82 separates itself on the blackness,
1.83 a horizontal thread
1.84 that fumes a little with pallor upon the dark.
1.85 Is it illusion? or does the pallor fume
1.86 A little higher?
1.87 Ah wait, wait, for there's the dawn
1.88 the cruel dawn of coming back to life
1.89 out of oblivion
1.90 Wait, wait, the little ship
1.91 drifting, beneath the deathly ashy grey
1.92 of a flood-dawn.
1.93 Wait, wait! even so, a flush of yellow
1.94 and strangely, O chilled wan soul, a flush of rose.
1.95 A flush of rose, and the whole thing starts again.
X
1.96 The flood subsides, and the body, like a worn sea-shell
1.97 emerges strange and lovely.
1.98 And the little ship wings home, faltering and lapsing
1.99 on the pink flood,
1.100 and the frail soul steps out, into the house again
1.101 filling the heart with peace.
1.102 Swings the heart renewed with peace
1.103 even of oblivion.
1.104 Oh build your ship of death. Oh build it!
1.105 for you will need it.
1.106 For the voyage of oblivion awaits you.
Version 2 (Ship of Death)
2.1 I sing of autumn and the falling fruit
2.2 and the long journey towards oblivion.
2.3 The apples falling like great drops of dew
2.4 to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.
2.5 Have you built your ship of death, oh, have you?
2.6 Build then your ship of death, for you will need it!
2.7 Can man his own quietus make
2.8 with a bare bodkin?
2.9 With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
2.10 a bruise or break of exit for his life
2.11 but is that a quietus, oh tell me, is it quietus?
2.12 Quietus is the goal of the long journey
2.13 the longest journey towards oblivion.
2.14 Slips out the soul, invisible one, wrapped still
2.15 in the white shirt of the mind's experiences
2.16 and folded in the dark-red, unseen
2.17 mantle of the boays still mortal memories.
2.18 Frightened and alone, the soul slips out of the house
2.19 or is pushed out
2.20 to find himself on the crowded, and margins of existence.
2.21 Oh, it is not so easy, I tell you it is not so easy
2.22 to set softly forth on the longest journey, the longest journey.
2.23 The margins, the grey beaches of shadow
2.24 strewn with dim wreckage, and crowded with crying souls
2.25 that lie outside the silvery walls of our body's builded city.
2.26 It is easy to be pushed out of the silvery city of the body
2.27 through any breach in the wall,
2.28 thrust out on to the grey grey beaches of shadow
2.29 the long marginal stretches of existence, crowded with lost souls
2.30 that intervene between tower and the shaking sea of the beyond.
2.31 Oh build your ship of death, oh build it in time
2.32 and build it lovingly, and put it between the hands of your soul.
2.33 Once outside the gate of the walled silvery life of days
2.34 once outside, upon the grey marsh beaches, where lost souls moan
2.35 in millions, unable to depart
2.36 having no boat to launch upon the shaken, soundless
2.37 deepest and longest of seas,
2.38 once outside the gate
2.39 what will you do, if you have no ship of the soul?
2.40 Oh pity the dead that are dead, but cannot take
2.41 the journey, still they moan and beat
2.42 against the silvery adamant walls of this our exclusive existence.
2.43 They moan and beat, they gnash, they rage
2.44 they fall upon the new outcoming souls with rage
2.45 and they send arrows of anger, bullets and bombs of frustration
2.46 over the adamant walls of this, our by-no-means impregnable existence.
2.47 Pity, oh pity the poor dead that are only ousted from life
2.48 and crowd there on the grey mud beaches of the margins
2.49 gaunt and horrible
2.50 waiting, waiting till at last the ancient boatman with the common barge
2.51 shall take them aboard, towards the great goal of oblivion.
2.52 Pity the poor gaunt dead that cannot die
2.53 into the distance with receding oars
2.54 but must roam like outcast dogs on the margins of life,
2.55 and think of them, and with the soul's deep sigh
2.56 waft nearer to them the bark of delivery.
2.57 But for myself, but for my soul, dear soul
2.58 let me build a little ship with oars and food
2.59 and little dishes, and all accoutrements
2.60 dainty and ready for the departing soul.
2.61 And put it between the hands of the trembling soul.
2.62 So that when the hour comes, and the last door closes behind him
2.63 he shall slip down the shores invisible
2.64 between the half-visible hordes
2.65 to where the furthest and the longest sea
2.66 touches the margins of our life's existence
2.67 with wincing unwilling waves.
2.68 And launching there his little ship,
2.69 wrapped in the dark-red mantle of the body's memories
2.70 the little, slender soul sits swiftly down, and takes the oars
2.71 and draws away, away, away, towards the dark depths
2.72 fathomless deep ahead, far, far from the grey shores
2.73 that fringe with shadow all this world's existence.
2.74 Over the sea, over the farthest sea
2.75 on the longest journey
2.76 past the jutting rocks of shadow
2.77 past the lurking, octopus arms of agonised memory
2.78 past the strange whirlpools of remembered greed
2.79 through the dead weed of a life-time's falsity,
2.80 slow, slow my soul, in his little ship
2.81 on the most soundless of all seas
2.82 taking the longest journey.
2.83 Pulling the long oars of a life-time's courage
2.84 drinking the confident water from the little jug
2.85 and eating the brave bread of a wholesome knowledge
2.86 row, little soul, row on
2.87 on the longest journey, towards the greatest goal
2.88 Neither straight nor crooked, neither here nor there
2.89 but shadows folded on deeper shadows
2.90 and deeper, to a core of sheer oblivion
2.91 like the convolutions of shadow-shell
2.92 or deeper, like the foldings and involvings of a womb.
2.93 Drift on, drift on, my soul, towards the most pure
2.94 most dark oblivion.
2.95 And at the penultimate porches, the dark-red mantle
2.96 of the body's memories slips and is absorbed
2.97 into the shell-like, womb-like convoluted shadow.
2.98 And round the great final bend of unbroken dark
2.99 the skirt of the spirit's experience has melted away
2.100 the oars have gone from the boat, and the little dishes
2.101 gone, gone, and the boat dissolves like pearl
2.102 as the soul at last slips perfect into the goal, the core
2.103 of sheer oblivion and of utter peace,
2.104 the womb of silence in the living night.
2.105 Ah peace, ah lovely peace, most lovely lapsing
2.106 of this my soul into the plasm of peace.
2.107 Oh lovely last, last lapse of death, into pure oblivion
2.108 at the end of the longest journey
2.109 peace, complete peace!
2.110 But can it be that also it is procreation?
2.111 Oh build your ship of death
2.112 oh build it!
2.113 Oh, nothing matters but the longest journey.
