D. H. Lawrence
The Apostolic Beasts
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About the print version
The Apostolic Beasts
The Dial, Vol. 70
D. H. Lawrence
First edition
410-416
Dial Publishing Company, Inc.
New York
April 1921
Published: 1921
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Saint Mark
There was a lion in Judah
Which whelped, and was Mark.
But winged --
A lion with wings --
At least at Venice,
Even as late as Daniele Manin.
Why should he have wings?
Is he to be a bird also?
Or a spirit?
Or a winged thought?
Or a soaring consciousness?
Evidently he is all that,
The lion of the spirit.
Ah, Lamb of God,
Would a wingless lion lie down before Thee, as this winged lion lies?
The lion of the spirit.
Once he lay in the mouth of a cave
And sunned his whiskers,
And lashed his tail slowly, slowly,
Thinking of voluptuousness,
Even of blood.
But later, in the sun of the afternoon,
Having tasted all there was to taste, and having slept his fill,
He fell to frowning, as he lay with his head on his paws
And the sun coming in through the narrowest fibril of a slit in his eyes.
So, nine-tenths asleep, motionless, bored and statically angry,
He saw in a shaft of light a lamb on a pinnacle, balancing a flag on its foot,
And he was thoroughly startled.
Going out to investigate,
He found the lamb beyond him, on the inaccessible pinnacle of light.
So he put his paw to his nose and pondered.
"Guard my sheep," came the silvery voice from the pinnacle,
"And I will give thee the wings of the morning."
So the lion of the senses thought it was worth it.
Hence he became a curly sheep-dog with dangerous propensities,
As Carpaccio will tell you:
Ramping round, guarding the flock ...
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