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

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I longed to taste. I longed to turn

       My heart's red measure in her cup,

       I longed to feel my hot blood burn

       With the amethyst in her cup.

       Then suddenly she looked up,

       And I was blind in a tawny-gold day,

       Till she took her eyes away.

       So she came down from above

       And emptied my heart of love.

       So I held my heart aloft

       To the cuckoo that hung like a dove,

       And she settled soft

       It seemed that I and the morning world

       Were pressed cup-shape to take this reiver

       Bird who was weary to have furled

       Her wings in us,

       As we were weary to receive her.

       This bird, this rich,

       Sumptuous central grain,

       This mutable witch,

       This one refrain,

       This laugh in the fight,

       This clot of night,

       This core of delight.

       She spoke, and I closed my eyes

       To shut hallucinations out.

       I echoed with surprise

       Hearing my mere lips shout

       The answer they did devise.

       Again I saw a brown bird hover

       Over the flowers at my feet;

       I felt a brown bird hover

       Over my heart, and sweet

       Its shadow lay on my heart.

       I thought I saw on the clover

       A brown bee pulling apart

       The closed flesh of the clover

       And burrowing in its heart.

       She moved her hand, and again

       I felt the brown bird cover

       My heart; and then

       The bird came down on my heart,

       As on a nest the rover

       Cuckoo comes, and shoves over

       The brim each careful part

       Of love, takes possession, and settles her down,

       With her wings and her feathers to drown

       The nest in a heat of love.

       She turned her flushed face to me for the glint

       Of a moment. "See," she laughed, "if you also

       Can make them yawn." I put my hand to the dint

       In the flower's throat, and the flower gaped wide

       with woe.

       She watched, she went of a sudden intensely still,

       She watched my hand, to see what I would fulfil.

       I pressed the wretched, throttled flower between

       My fingers, till its head lay back, its fangs

       Poised at her. Like a weapon my hand was white

       and keen,

       And I held the choked flower-serpent in its pangs

       Of mordant anguish, till she ceased to laugh,

       Until her pride's flag, smitten, cleaved down to the

       staff.

       She hid her face, she murmured between her lips

       The low word "Don't." I let the flower fall,

       But held my hand afloat towards the slips

       Of blossom she fingered, and my fingers all

       Put forth to her: she did not move, nor I,

       For my hand like a snake watched hers, that could

       not fly.

       Then I laughed in the dark of my heart, I did exult

       Like a sudden chuckling of music. I bade her eyes

       Meet mine, I opened her helpless eyes to consult

       Their fear, their shame, their joy that underlies

       Defeat in such a battle. In the dark of her eyes

       My heart was fierce to make her laughter rise.

       Till her dark deeps shook with convulsive thrills, and

       the dark

       Of her spirit wavered like water thrilled with light;

       And my heart leaped up in longing to plunge its stark

       Fervour within the pool of her twilight,

       Within her spacious soul, to grope in delight.

       And I do not care, though the large hands of revenge

       Shall get my throat at last, shall get it soon,

       If the joy that they are searching to avenge

       Have risen red on my night as a harvest moon,

       Which even death can only put out for me;

       And death, I know, is better than not-to-be.

      A Passing Bell

       Table of Contents

      Mournfully to and fro, to and fro the trees are

       waving;

       What did you say, my dear? The rain-bruised leaves are suddenly shaken, as a child Asleep still shakes in the clutch of a sob— Yes, my love, I hear. One lonely bell, one only, the storm-tossed afternoon is braving, Why not let it ring? The roses lean down when they hear it, the tender, mild Flowers of the bleeding-heart fall to the throb— It is such a little thing! A wet bird walks on the lawn, call to the boy to come and look, Yes, it is over now. Call to him out of the silence, call him to see The starling shaking its head as it walks in the grass— Ah, who knows how? He cannot see it, I can never show it him, how it shook— Don't disturb him, darling. —Its head as it walked: I can never call him to me, Never, he is not, whatever shall come to pass. No, look at the wet starling.

      In Trouble and Shame

       Table of Contents

      I look at the swaling sunset

       And wish I could go also

       Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.

       I wish that I could go

       Through the red doors where I could put off

       My shame like shoes in the porch,

       My pain like garments,

       And leave my flesh discarded lying

       Like luggage of some departed traveller

       Gone one knows not where.

       Then I would turn round,

       And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber,

       I would laugh with joy.

      Elegy

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