The Poetry of D. H. Lawrence - D. H. Lawrence

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For the lips and the eyes of God are behind a veil.

       And the thought of the lipless voice of the Father shakes me

       With fear, and fills my eyes with the tears of desire,

       And my heart rebels with anguish as night draws nigher,

      In a Boat

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      See the stars, love,

       In the water much clearer and brighter

       Than those above us, and whiter,

       Like nenuphars.

       Star-shadows shine, love,

       How many stars in your bowl?

       How many shadows in your soul,

       Only mine, love, mine?

       When I move the oars, love,

       See how the stars are tossed,

       Distorted, the brightest lost.

       —So that bright one of yours, love.

       The poor waters spill

       The stars, waters broken, forsaken.

       —The heavens are not shaken, you say, love,

       Its stars stand still.

       There, did you see

       That spark fly up at us; even

       Stars are not safe in heaven.

       —What of yours, then, love, yours?

       What then, love, if soon

       Your light be tossed over a wave?

       Will you count the darkness a grave,

       And swoon, love, swoon?

      Week-night Service

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      The five old bells

       Are hurrying and eagerly calling,

       Imploring, protesting

       They know, but clamorously falling

       Into gabbling incoherence, never resting,

       Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket dropping

       In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping.

       The silver moon

       That somebody has spun so high

       To settle the question, yes or no, has caught

       In the net of the night's balloon,

       And sits with a smooth bland smile up there in the sky

       Smiling at naught,

       Unless the winking star that keeps her company

       Makes little jests at the bells' insanity,

       As if he knew aught! The patient Night Sits indifferent, hugged in her rags, She neither knows nor cares Why the old church sobs and brags; The light distresses her eyes, and tears Her old blue cloak, as she crouches and covers her face, Smiling, perhaps, if we knew it, at the bells' loud clattering disgrace. The wise old trees Drop their leaves with a faint, sharp hiss of contempt, While a car at the end of the street goes by with a laugh; As by degrees The poor bells cease, and the Night is exempt, And the stars can chaff The ironic moon at their ease, while the dim old church Is peopled with shadows and sounds and ghosts that lurch In its cenotaph.

      Irony

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      Always, sweetheart,

       Carry into your room the blossoming boughs of cherry,

       Almond and apple and pear diffuse with light, that very

       Soon strews itself on the floor; and keep the radiance of spring

       Fresh quivering; keep the sunny-swift March-days waiting

       In a little throng at your door, and admit the one who is plaiting

       Her hair for womanhood, and play awhile with her, then bid her depart.

       A come and go of March-day loves

       Through the flower-vine, trailing screen;

       A fluttering in of doves.

       Then a launch abroad of shrinking doves

       Over the waste where no hope is seen

       Of open hands:

       Dance in and out

       Small-bosomed girls of the spring of love,

       With a bubble of laughter, and shrilly shout

       Of mirth; then the dripping of tears on your glove.

      Dreams Old and Nascent

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      Old

      I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill

       Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon

       Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still

       In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.

       The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,

       Like savage music striking far off, and there

       On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and shine

       Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.

       There lies the world, my darling, full of wonder and

       wistfulness and strange

       Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as

       I greet the cloud

       Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range

       At the back of my life's horizon, where the dreamings of past lives crowd.

       Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil

       Of the afternoon glows to me the old romance of David and Dora,

       With the old, sweet, soothing tears, and laughter that shakes the sail

       Of the ship of the soul over seas where dreamed dreams lure the unoceaned explorer.

       All the bygone, hushèd years

       Streaming back where the mist distils

       Into forgetfulness: soft-sailing waters where fears

       No longer shake, where the silk sail fills

       With an unfelt breeze that ebbs over the seas, where the storm

       Of living has passed, on and on

       Through the coloured iridescence that swims in the warm

       Wake of the tumult now spent and gone,

       Drifts my boat, wistfully lapsing after

       The mists of vanishing tears and the echo of laughter.

      Dreams Old and Nascent

       Table

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