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

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indeed

       Like the sign of a lover who turns to the dark of

       sleep.

       Against my heart the inviolate sleep breaks still

       In darkened waves whose breaking echoes o'er

       The wondering world of my wakeful day, till I'm

       lost

       In the midst of the places I knew so well before.

      Dissolute

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      Many years have I still to burn, detained

       Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshrine

       A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps

       contained

       In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine.

       And through these years, while I burn on the fuel of

       life,

       What matter the stuff I lick up in my living flame,

       Seeing I keep in the fire-core, inviolate,

       A night where she dreams my dreams for me, ever

       the same.

      Submergence

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      When along the pavement,

       Palpitating flames of life,

       People flicker round me,

       I forget my bereavement,

       The gap in the great constellation,

       The place where a star used to be.

       Nay, though the pole-star

       Is blown out like a candle,

       And all the heavens are wandering in disarray,

       Yet when pleiads of people are

       Deployed around me, and I see

       The street's long outstretched Milky Way,

       When people flicker down the pavement,

       I forget my bereavement.

      The Enkindled Spring

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      This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

       Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

       Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

       Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering

       rushes.

       I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

       Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

       Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,

       Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

       And I, what fountain of fire am I among

       This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is

       tossed

       About like a shadow buffeted in the throng

       Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

      Reproach

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      Had I but known yesterday,

       Helen, you could discharge the ache

       Out of the cloud;

       Had I known yesterday you could take

       The turgid electric ache away,

       Drink it up with your proud

       White body, as lovely white lightning

       Is drunk from an agonised sky by the earth,

       I might have hated you, Helen.

       But since my limbs gushed full of fire,

       Since from out of my blood and bone

       Poured a heavy flame

       To you, earth of my atmosphere, stone

       Of my steel, lovely white flint of desire,

       You have no name.

       Earth of my swaying atmosphere,

       Substance of my inconstant breath,

       I cannot but cleave to you.

       Since you have drunken up the drear

       Painful electric storm, and death

       Is washed from the blue

       Of my eyes, I see you beautiful.

       You are strong and passive and beautiful,

       I come like winds that uncertain hover;

       But you

       Are the earth I hover over.

      The Hands of the Betrothed

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      Her tawny eyes are onyx of thoughtlessness,

       Hardened they are like gems in ancient modesty;

       Yea, and her mouth's prudent and crude caress

       Means even less than her many words to me.

       Though her kiss betrays me also this, this only

       Consolation, that in her lips her blood at climax

       clips

       Two wild, dumb paws in anguish on the lonely

       Fruit of my heart, ere down, rebuked, it slips.

       I know from her hardened lips that still her heart is

       Hungry for me, yet if I put my hand in her breast

       She puts me away, like a saleswoman whose mart is

       Endangered by the pilferer on his quest.

       But her hands are still the woman, the large, strong

       hands

       Heavier than mine, yet like leverets caught in

       steel

       When I hold them; my still soul understands

       Their dumb confession of what her sort must feel.

       For never her hands come nigh me but they lift

       Like heavy birds from the morning stubble, to

       settle

       Upon me like sleeping birds, like birds that shift

       Uneasily in their sleep, disturbing my mettle.

       How caressingly she lays her hand on my knee,

       How strangely she tries to disown it, as it sinks

       In my flesh and bone and forages into me,

       How it stirs like a subtle stoat, whatever she

       thinks!

       And often I see her clench her fingers tight

       And thrust

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