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

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The steam-flag flying;

       I see the stealthy shadow of silence

       Alongside going.

       And off the forge of the world,

       Whirling in the draught of life,

       Go sparks of myriad people, filling

       The night with strife.

       Yet they never change the darkness

       Or blench it with noise;

       Alone on the perfect silence

       The stars are buoys.

      Brooding Grief

       Table of Contents

      A yellow leaf from the darkness

       Hops like a frog before me.

       Why should I start and stand still?

       I was watching the woman that bore me

       Stretched in the brindled darkness

       Of the sick-room, rigid with will

       To die: and the quick leaf tore me

       Back to this rainy swill

       Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

      Lotus Hurt by the Cold

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      How many times, like lotus lilies risen

       Upon the surface of a river, there

       Have risen floating on my blood the rare

       Soft glimmers of my hope escaped from prison.

       So I am clothed all over with the light

       And sensitive beautiful blossoming of passion;

       Till naked for her in the finest fashion

       The flowers of all my mud swim into sight.

       And then I offer all myself unto

       This woman who likes to love me: but she turns

       A look of hate upon the flower that burns

       To break and pour her out its precious dew.

       And slowly all the blossom shuts in pain,

       And all the lotus buds of love sink over

       To die unopened: when my moon-faced lover,

       Kind on the weight of suffering, smiles again.

      Malade

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      The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone;

       at the window

       The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the

       pane,

       As a little wind comes in.

       The room is the hollow rind of a fruit, a gourd

       Scooped out and dry, where a spider,

       Folded in its legs as in a bed,

       Lies on the dust, watching where is nothing to see

       but twilight and walls.

       And if the day outside were mine! What is the day

       But a grey cave, with great grey spider-cloths

       hanging

       Low from the roof, and the wet dust falling softly

       from them

       Over the wet dark rocks, the houses, and over

       The spiders with white faces, that scuttle on the

       floor of the cave!

       I am choking with creeping, grey confinedness.

       But somewhere birds, beside a lake of light, spread

       wings

       Larger than the largest fans, and rise in a stream

       upwards

       And upwards on the sunlight that rains invisible,

       So that the birds are like one wafted feather,

       Small and ecstatic suspended over a vast spread

       country.

      Liaison

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      A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight,

       Star-spiders spinning their thread

       Hang high suspended, withouten respite

       Watching us overhead.

       Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths

       Curtain us in so dark

       That here we're safe from even the ermin-moth's

       Flitting remark.

       Here in this swarthy, secret tent,

       Where black boughs flap the ground,

       You shall draw the thorn from my discontent,

       Surgeon me sound.

       This rare, rich night! For in here

       Under the yew-tree tent

       The darkness is loveliest where I could sear

       You like frankincense into scent.

       Here not even the stars can spy us,

       Not even the white moths write

       With their little pale signs on the wall, to try us

       And set us affright.

       Kiss but then the dust from off my lips,

       But draw the turgid pain

       From my breast to your bosom, eclipse

       My soul again.

       Waste me not, I beg you, waste

       Not the inner night:

       Taste, oh taste and let me taste

       The core of delight.

      Troth With the Dead

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      The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon

       Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky;

       The other half of the broken coin of troth

       Is buried away in the dark, where the still dead lie.

       They buried her half in the grave when they laid her

       away;

       I had pushed it gently in among the thick of her hair

       Where it gathered towards the plait, on that very

       last day;

       And like a moon in secret it is shining there.

       My half shines in the sky, for a general sign

       Of the troth with the dead I pledged myself to keep;

       Turning its broken edge to the dark, it shines

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