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

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and the last fires of dissolution burn in the bosom

       of the ground.

       They are the flowers of ice-vivid mortification,

       thaw-cold, ice-corrupt blossoms,

       with a loveliness I loathe;

       for what kind of ice-rotten, hot-aching heart

       must they need to root in!

      Craving for Spring

       Table of Contents

      I WISH it were spring in the world.

       Let it be spring!

       Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap!

       Come, rush of creation!

       Come, life! surge through this mass of mortification!

       Come, sweep away these exquisite, ghastly first-flowers,

       which are rather last-flowers!

       Come, thaw down their cool portentousness,

       dissolve them:

       snowdrops, straight, death-veined exhalations of

       white and purple crocuses,

       flowers of the penumbra, issue of corruption,

       nourished in mortification,

       jets of exquisite finality;

       Come, spring, make havoc of them!

       I trample on the snowdrops, it gives me pleasure

       to tread down the jonquils,

       to destroy the chill Lent lilies;

       for I am sick of them, their faint-bloodedness,

       slow-blooded, icy-fleshed, portentous.

       I want the fine, kindling wine-sap of spring,

       gold, and of inconceivably fine, quintessential

       brightness,

       rare almost as beams, yet overwhelmingly potent,

       strong like the greatest force of world-balancing.

       This is the same that picks up the harvest of wheat

       and rocks it, tons of grain, on the ripening wind;

       the same that dangles the globe-shaped pleiads of

       fruit

       temptingly in mid-air, between a playful thumb and

       finger;

       oh, and suddenly, from out of nowhere, whirls

       the pear-bloom,

       upon us, and apple- and almond- and apricot-

       and quince-blossom,

       storms and cumulus clouds of all imaginable

       blossom

       about our bewildered faces,

       though we do not worship.

       I wish it were spring

       cunningly blowing on the fallen sparks, odds and

       ends of the old, scattered fire,

       and kindling shapely little conflagrations

       curious long-legged foals, and wide-eared calves,

       and naked sparrow-bubs.

       I wish that spring

       would start the thundering traffic of feet

       new feet on the earth, beating with impatience.

       I wish it were spring, thundering

       delicate, tender spring.

       I wish these brittle, frost-lovely flowers of passionate,

       mysterious corruption

       were not yet to come still more from the still-

       flickering discontent.

       Oh, in the spring, the bluebell bows him down for

       very exuberance,

       exulting with secret warm excess,

       bowed down with his inner magnificence!

       Oh, yes, the gush of spring is strong enough

       to toss the globe of earth like a ball on a water-jet

       dancing sportfully;

       as you see a tiny celluloid ball tossing on a squint

       of water

       for men to shoot at, penny-a-time, in a booth at a

       fair.

       The gush of spring is strong enough

       to play with the globe of earth like a ball on a

       fountain;

       At the same time it opens the tiny hands of the

       hazel

       with such infinite patience.

       The power of the rising, golden, all-creative sap

       could take the earth

       and heave it off among the stars, into the invisible;

       the same sets the throstle at sunset on a bough

       singing against the blackbird;

       comes out in the hesitating tremor of the primrose,

       and betrays its candour in the round white strawberry flower,

       is dignified in the foxglove, like a Red-Indian

       brave.

       Ah come, come quickly, spring!

       Come and lift us towards our culmination, we

       myriads;

       we who have never flowered, like patient cactuses.

       Come and lift us to our end, to blossom, bring us

       to our summer

       we who are winter-weary in the winter of the world.

       Come making the chaffinch nests hollow and cosy,

       come and soften the willow buds till they are

       puffed and furred,

       then blow them over with gold.

       Come and cajole the gawky colt's-foot flowers.

       Come quickly, and vindicate us

       against too much death.

       Come quickly, and stir the rotten globe of the

       world from within,

       burst it with germination, with world anew.

       Come now, to us, your adherents, who cannot

       flower from the ice.

       All the world gleams with the lilies of Death the

       Unconquerable,

       but come, give us our turn.

       Enough of the virgins and lilies, of passionate,

       suffocating perfume of corruption,

       no more narcissus perfume, lily harlots, the blades

       of sensation

       piercing the flesh to blossom of death.

       Have done, have done with this shuddering,

       delicious business

       of thrilling ruin in the flesh, of pungent passion,

       of rare, death-edged ecstasy.

       Give us our turn, give us a chance, let our hour

       strike,

       O soon, soon!

      

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