Pictures of Life and Death in Bavarian Gentians As the last days of summer fade away and the end of September brings with it the promise of a cold and dreary autumn, the Michaelmas feast and they are gone, and one cannot help but be reminded of D.H. Lawrence's "Bavarian Gentians," a poem that begins by recalling the dreary days of late September, when summer has finally gone away along with its inebriating and life-giving breath. Like the days that separate summer from autumn, Lawrence's poem, one of his last, is a sad and dreamy read. He seduces the audience with his slow dance with blue death. He speaks to students with his melancholy passion. It gives life to the last days before death. A death resulting from tuberculosis is never sudden. The disease progresses slowly until it gradually overwhelms its victim, who must wait with tragic patience for that final moment. At the end of The Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann addresses his protagonist parting words that speak of the ravages of tuberculosis and its almost inescapable force: "The evil dance in which you are involved will last many more sinful years, and we would like not to bet much that You'll come out of this whole." Having long been ill with tuberculosis, Lawrence also became involved in an "evil dance", which must have made him feel, like the speaker of the poem, as if he were leading himself "...with the blue, forked torch of this flower / down the increasingly dark stairs..." until finally reaching its destination, the "blind kingdom where darkness is awake upon darkness". The poem itself is a complex web, a trance-like dream that suggests both a gravitation toward death and a transcendence beyond it. The speaker talks about the "halls of Dis" and the journey down where... middle of paper... Chapter 7: Prosperina - Glaucus and Scylla." Oct. 2001. http://www.bulfinch.org/fables/ bull7.htmlFerris, T. "Bavarian Gentians by D.H. Lawrence, October 2001. http://home.earthlink.net/~rudedog2/bavarianpoem.htmLawrence, line 16.Lawrence lines 17-18. Lawrence, line 14, line 2.Lawrence, line 13.Lawrence, line 11.This part of the later version, along with the second stanza, can be found in: Ferris, T. "Bavarian Gentians by D.H. Lawrence Oct. 2001. http: //home.earthlink.net/~rudedog2/bavarianpoem.htm. The complete poem, however, cannot be found there. Ferris, T. "Bavarian Gentians by D.H. Lawrence, October 2001. http://. /home.earthlink.net/~rudedog2/bavarianpoem.htm.Ferris, T. "Bavarian Gentians by D.H. Lawrence, October 2001. http://home.earthlink.net/~rudedog2/bavarianpoem.htm.".