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

Скачать книгу

Communion, offering—“a better thing.”

       So I lay on your breast for an obscure hour

       Feeling your fingers go

      Like a rhythmic breeze

       Over my hair, and tracing my brows,

       Till I knew you not from a little wind:

       —I wonder now if God allows

       Us only one moment his keys.

      If only then

       You could have unlocked the moon on the night,

       And I baptized myself in the light

       Of your love; we both have entered then the white

       Pure passion, and never again.

      I wonder if only

       You had taken me then, how different

       Life would have been: should I have spent

       Myself in waste, and you have bent

       Your pride, through being lonely?

      Bei Hennef

       Table of Contents

      The little river twittering in the twilight,

       The wan, wondering look of the pale sky,

       This is almost bliss.

      And everything shut up and gone to sleep,

       All the troubles and anxieties and pain

       Gone under the twilight.

      Only the twilight now, and the soft “Sh!” of the river

       That will last for ever.

      And at last I know my love for you is here,

       I can see it all, it is whole like the twilight,

       It is large, so large, I could not see it before

       Because of the little lights and flickers and interruptions,

       Troubles, anxieties and pains.

      You are the call and I am the answer,

       You are the wish, and I the fulfilment,

       You are the night, and I the day.

       What else—it is perfect enough,

       It is perfectly complete,

       You and I,

       What more——?

       Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!

      Lightning

       Table of Contents

      I felt the lurch and halt of her heart

       Next my breast, where my own heart was beating;

       And I laughed to feel it plunge and bound,

       And strange in my blood-swept ears was the sound

       Of the words I kept repeating,

       Repeating with tightened arms, and the hot blood’s blindfold art.

      Her breath flew warm against my neck,

       Warm as a flame in the close night air;

       And the sense of her clinging flesh was sweet

       Where her arms and my neck’s blood-surge could meet.

       Holding her thus, did I care

       That the black night hid her from me, blotted out every speck?

      I leaned me forward to find her lips,

       And claim her utterly in a kiss,

       When the lightning flew across her face,

       And I saw her for the flaring space

       Of a second, afraid of the clips

       Of my arms, inert with dread, wilted in fear of my kiss.

      A moment, like a wavering spark,

       Her face lay there before my breast,

       Pale love lost in a snow of fear,

       And guarded by a glittering tear,

       And lips apart with dumb cries;

       A moment, and she was taken again in the merciful dark.

      I heard the thunder, and felt the rain,

       And my arms fell loose, and I was dumb.

       Almost I hated her, she was so good,

       Hated myself, and the place, and my blood,

       Which burned with rage, as I bade her come

       Home, away home, ere the lightning floated forth again.

      Song-day in Autumn

       Table of Contents

      When the autumn roses

       Are heavy with dew,

       Before the mist discloses

       The leaf’s brown hue,

       You would, among the laughing hills

       Of yesterday

       Walk innocent in the daffodils,

       Coiffing up your auburn hair

       In a puritan fillet, a chaste white snare

       To catch and keep me with you there

       So far away.

      When from the autumn roses

       Trickles the dew,

       When the blue mist uncloses

       And the sun looks through,

       You from those startled hills

       Come away,

       Out of the withering daffodils;

       Thoughtful, and half afraid,

       Plaiting a heavy, auburn braid

       And coiling it round the wise brows of a maid

       Who was scared in her play.

      When in the autumn roses

       Creeps a bee,

       And a trembling flower encloses

       His ecstasy,

       You from your lonely walk

       Turn away,

       And leaning to me like a flower on its stalk,

       Wait among the beeches

       For your late bee who beseeches

       To creep through your loosened hair till he reaches,

       Your heart of dismay.

      Aware

       Table of Contents

      Slowly the moon is rising out of the ruddy haze,

       Divesting herself of her golden shift, and so

       Emerging white and exquisite; and I in amaze

       See in the sky before me, a woman I did not know

       I loved, but there she goes and her beauty hurts my heart;

       I follow her down the night, begging her not to depart.

      A Pang of Reminiscence

Скачать книгу