The phrase "a shadow of mortality" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to convey a sense of the fleeting nature of life or the inevitability of death, often in a poetic or philosophical context.
Example: "As he gazed at the sunset, he felt a shadow of mortality creeping in, reminding him of the transient beauty of life."
Alternatives: "an echo of mortality" or "a reminder of mortality".
WHAT we see in "The Ambassadors," or hear in a piece of third-period music like Beethoven's B Flat String Quartet, Op. 130, is the awesome spectacle of a genius learning to live in the shadow of mortality.
The shadow of mortality and mourning that is a basic requirement of mysteries is doubled in the case of End Games, Michael Dibdin's 11th novel about the Italian cop Aurelio Zen, because the advance copies began to circulate just after the news of the writer's death on March 30, nine days after his 60th birthday.
Where does all this yearning come from?" We spend our lives yearning, and then, in the shadow of mortality, our yearning is redirected backwards, a yearning to understand our past lives, our youth, and again forwards – a yearning to understand the point of our death.
The shadow of mortality hangs over This Ride (written after a friend's death), where the duo conjure joy from darkness.
Foremost, she explores the late innings of a successful marriage, in which husband and wife cling together in the shadow of mortality.
And his play is at its most affecting when it portrays courtships conducted in the shadow of mortality.
Quarrelsome, greedy, gossipy and small-minded: what has always defined the Gordons of Harrison, Tex., glows all the brighter in the shadow of mortality.
Like all southerners, he was keenly aware of death, but the shadow of mortality failed to darken his brilliance, and the famous slow pace of southern life only reminded Cy how much harder he had to work.
As a branch of Balthazar gears up to open in London, the restaurateur speaks with haunting openness about his upbringing, his divorce, his passion for film and theater, his hit restaurants and the ever-present shadow of mortality.
When Chekhov completed "The Cherry Orchard" in 1904, he was dying, and the play, which he labeled a comedy, could be viewed as a final chortle of recognition at the vanity of human wishes and the ultimate absurdity of human endeavor in the shadow of mortality.
