D H Lawrence and the Hands of God

Now this is an extraordinary poem from a very surprising pen. I can’t imagine many contemporary novelists coming up with something on these lines (with the exception perhaps of PD James or Marilynne Robinson…?)

THE HANDS OF GOD
D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930)

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
But it is a much more fearful thing to fall out of them.

Did Lucifer fall through knowledge?
Oh, then, pity him, pity him that plunge!

Save me, O God, from falling into the ungodly knowledge
of myself as I am without God.
Let me never know, O God
let me never know what I am or should be
when I have fallen out of your hands, the hands of the living God.

That awful and sickening endless sinking, sinking
through the slow, corruptive levels of disintegrative knowledge
when the self has fallen from the hands of God,
and sinks, seething and sinking, corrupt
and sinking in the endless undoing, the awful katabolism into the abyss!
even of the soul, fallen from the hands of God.

Save me from that, O God!
Let me never know myself apart from the living God!

But don’t forget. There’s always John 10: 27-30

(HT Nancy H)

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