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

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the fire up bright;

       Let us leave the rest in the dark

       And sit by firelight.

       The wine is warm in the hearth;

       The flickers come and go.

       I will warm your feet with kisses

       Until they glow.

      New Year's Eve

       Table of Contents

      THERE are only two things now,

       The great black night scooped out

       And this fire-glow.

       This fire-glow, the core,

       And we the two ripe pips

       That are held in store.

       Listen, the darkness rings

       As it circulates round our fire.

       Take off your things.

       Your shoulders, your bruised throat

       Your breasts, your nakedness!

       This fiery coat!

       As the darkness flickers and dips,

       As the firelight falls and leaps

       From your feet to your lips!

      New Year's Night

       Table of Contents

      Now you are mine, to-night at last I say it;

       You're a dove I have bought for sacrifice,

       And to-night I slay it.

       Here in my arms my naked sacrifice!

       Death, do you hear, in my arms I am bringing

       My offering, bought at great price.

       She's a silvery dove worth more than all I've got.

       Now I offer her up to the ancient, inexorable God,

       Who knows me not.

       Look, she's a wonderful dove, without blemish or

       spot!

       I sacrifice all in her, my last of the world,

       Pride, strength, all the lot.

       All, all on the altar! And death swooping down

       Like a falcon. 'Tis God has taken the victim;

       I have won my renown.

      Valentine's Night

       Table of Contents

      You shadow and flame,

       You interchange,

       You death in the game!

       Now I gather you up,

       Now I put you back

       Like a poppy in its cup.

       And so, you are a maid

       Again, my darling, but new,

       Unafraid.

       My love, my blossom, a child

       Almost! The flower in the bud

       Again, undefiled.

       And yet, a woman, knowing

       All, good, evil, both

       In one blossom blowing.

      Birth Night

       Table of Contents

      THIS fireglow is a red womb

       In the night, where you're folded up

       On your doom.

       And the ugly, brutal years

       Are dissolving out of you,

       And the stagnant tears.

       I the great vein that leads

       From the night to the source of you,

       Which the sweet blood feeds.

       New phase in the germ of you;

       New sunny streams of blood

       Washing you through.

       You are born again of me.

       I, Adam, from the veins of me

       The Eve that is to be.

       What has been long ago

       Grows dimmer, we both forget,

       We no longer know.

       You are lovely, your face is soft

       Like a flower in bud

       On a mountain croft.

       This is Noël for me.

       To-night is a woman born

       Of the man in me.

      Rabbit Snared in the Night

       Table of Contents

      WHY do you spurt and sprottle

       like that, bunny?

       Why should I want to throttle

       you, bunny?

       Yes, bunch yourself between

       my knees and lie still.

       Lie on me with a hot, plumb, live weight,

       heavy as a stone, passive,

       yet hot, waiting.

       What are you waiting for?

       What are you waiting for?

       What is the hot, plumb weight of your desire on

       me?

       You have a hot, unthinkable desire of me, bunny.

       What is that spark

       glittering at me on the unutterable darkness

       of your eye, bunny?

       The finest splinter of a spark

       that you throw off, straight on the tinder of my

       nerves!

       It sets up a strange fire,

       a soft, most unwarrantable burning

       a bale-fire mounting, mounting up in me.

       'Tis not of me, bunny.

       It was you engendered it,

       with that fine, demoniacal spark

       you jetted off your eye at me.

       I did not want it, this furnace, this draught-maddened fire which mounts up my arms making them swell with turgid, ungovernable strength. 'Twas not I that wished it, that my fingers should turn into these flames avid and terrible that they are at this moment. It must have been your inbreathing, gaping desire that drew this red gush in me; I must be reciprocating your vacuous, hideous passion. It must be the want in you that has drawn this terrible draught of white fire up my veins as up a chimney. It must be you who desire this intermingling of the black

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