Explore "All Souls" by D.H. Lawrence on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
THEY are chanting now the service of All the Dead / And the village folk outside in the burying ground / Listen--except those who strive with their dead, / Reaching out in anguish, yet unable quite to / touch them: / Those villagers isolated at the grave / Where the candles burn in the daylight, and the / painted wreaths / Are propped on end, there, where the mystery / starts.
The naked candles burn on every grave. / On your grave, in England, the weeds grow.
But I am your naked candle burning, / And that is not your grave, in England, / The world is your grave. / And my naked body standing on your grave / Upright towards heaven is burning off to you / Its flame of life, now and always, till the end.
It is my offering to you; every day is All Souls' / Day.
I forget you, have forgotten you. / I am busy only at my burning, / I am busy only at my life. / But my feet are on your grave, planted. / And when I lift my face, it is a flame that goes up / To the other world, where you are now. / But I am not concerned with you. / I have forgotten you.
I am a naked candle burning on your grave.