D. H. Lawrence (David Herbert Richards)

As a drenched, drowned bee Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower, So clings to me

When the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind, They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water;

The yellow sun steps over the mountain-top And falters a few short steps across the lake - Are you awake?

As I went through the marshes a doe sprang out of the corn and flashed up the hill-side leaving her fawn. On the sky-line she moved round to watch, she pricked a fine black blotch on the sky. I looked at her and felt her watching;

Reject me not if I should say to you I do forget the sounding of your voice, I do forget your eyes that searching through

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

Close your eyes, my love, let me make you blind; They have taught you to see Only a mean arithmetic on the face of things,

Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow, And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge; Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go

The pain of loving you Is almost more than I can bear. I walk in fear of you.

There are four men mowing down by the Isar; I can hear the swish of the scythe-strokes, four Sharp breaths taken: yea, and I

I wonder if with you, as it is with me, If under your slipping words, that easily flow About you as a garment, easily,

Down the stone stairs Girls with their large eyes wide with tragedy Lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion up at me.

They are chanting now the service of All the Dead And the village folk outside in the burying ground Listen - except those who strive with their dead,

No, now I wish the sunshine would stop, and the white shining houses, and the gay red flowers on the balconies and the bluish mountains beyond, would be crushed out between two valves of darkness; the darkness falling, the darkness rising, with muffled sound obliterating everything. I wish that whatever props up the walls of light would fall, and darkness would come hurling heavily down, and it would be thick black dark for ever. Not sleep, which is grey with dreams, nor death, which quivers with birth, but heavy, sealing darkness, silence, all immovable.

The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun, The crisping steam of a train Melts in the air, while two black birds

And all hours long, the town Roars like a beast in a cave That is wounded there

The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter; While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.

The plane leaves fall black and wet on the lawn;

The sun sets out the autumn crocuses And fills them up a pouring measure Of death-producing wine, till treasure

You know what it is to be born alone, Baby tortoise! The first day to heave your feet little by little from the shell,

FIRST PART Upon her plodding palfrey With a heavy child at her breast

OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard, Lamps in a wash of rain! Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard,

When the wind blows her veil And uncovers her laughter I cease, I turn pale.

This fireglow is a red womb In the night, where you're folded up On your doom.

I Ah, stern, cold man, How can you lie so relentless hard

The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide Slowly into another day; slowly the rover

The town has opened to the sun. Like a flat red lily with a million petals She unfolds, she comes undone.

And because you love me think you you do not hate me? Ha, since you love me to ecstasy

So you are lost to me! Ah you, you ear of corn straight lying, What food is this for the darkly flying

A yellow leaf from the darkness Hops like a frog before me. Why should I start and stand still?

The shorn moon trembling indistinct on her path, Frail as a scar upon the pale blue sky, Draws towards the downward slope; some sorrow hath

When I woke, the lake-lights were quivering on the wall, The sunshine swam in a shoal across and across, And a hairy, big bee hung over the primulas

I wish it were spring in the world. Let it be spring! Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap!

The trees in trouble because of autumn, And scarlet berries falling from the bush, And all the myriad houseless seeds

Take off your cloak and your hat And your shoes, and draw up at my hearth Where never woman sat.

It is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to the pane, The thin sycamores in the playground are swinging with flattened leaves; The heads of the boys move dimly through a yellow gloom that stains

Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips, And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship's

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

The acrid scents of autumn, Reminiscent of slinking beasts, make me fear Everything, tear-trembling stars of autumn

It is Isis the mystery Must be in love with me. Here this round ball of earth

My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes Of old, ineffectual lives linger blurred and warm; An endless tapestry the past has woven drapes

I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still

Too far away, oh love, I know, To save me from this haunted road, Whose lofty roses break and blow

Since I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near, And I am of it, the small sharp stars are quite near, The white moon going among them like a white bird among snow-berries,

The sun immense and rosy Must have sunk and become extinct The night you closed your eyes for ever against me.

I have found a place of loneliness Lonelier than Lyonesse Lovelier than Paradise;

Outcasts. The night rain, dripping unseen, Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands.

Charity. By the river In the black wet night as the furtive rain slinks down,

Patience, little Heart. One day a heavy, June-hot woman Will enter and shut the door to stay.

Who do you think stands watching The snow-tops shining rosy In heaven, now that the darkness

The red range heaves and compulsory sways, ah see! in the flush of a march Softly-impulsive advancing as water towards a weir from the arch Of shadow emerging as blood emerges from inward shades of our night

I wonder, can the night go by; Can this shot arrow of travel fly Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky

She speaks. Look at the little darlings in the corn! The rye is taller than you, who think yourself

The darkness steals the forms of all the queens, But oh, the palms of his two black hands are red, Inflamed with binding up the sheaves of dead

The night was a failure but why not - ? In the darkness with the pale dawn seething at the window through the black frame I could not be free, not free myself from the past, those others -    and our love was a confusion, there was a horror, you recoiled away from me. Now, in the morning

Love has crept out of her seal'd heart As a field-bee, black and amber, Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamber

The new red houses spring like plants In level rows Of reddish herbage that bristles and slants

The house is silent, it is late at night, I am alone. From the balcony I can hear the Isar moan, Can see the white

You have come your way, I have come my way; You have stepped across your people, carelessly, hurting them all; I have stepped across my people, and hurt them in spite of my care.

The glimmer of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping, Goes trembling past me up the College wall. Below, the lawn, in soft blue shade is keeping,

It is not long since, here among all these folk in London, I should have held myself of no account whatever,

Along the avenue of cypresses All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices Of linen go the chanting choristers,

I, the man with the red scarf, Will give thee what I have, this last week's earnings. Take them, and buy thee a silver ring

When she rises in the morning I linger to watch her; She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window

The night turns slowly round, Swift trains go by in a rush of light; Slow trains steal past.

The dawn was apple-green, The sky was green wine held up in the sun, The moon was a golden petal between.

When you went, how was it you carried with you My missal book of fine, flamboyant hours? My book of turrets and of red-thorn bowers,

A Review in Hyde Park 1913. The Crowd Watches. Where the trees rise like cliffs, proud and blue-tinted in the distance,

Far-Off the lily-statues stand white-ranked in the garden at home. Would God they were shattered quickly, the cattle would tread them out in the loam. I wish the elder trees in flower could suddenly heave, and burst

The listless beauty of the hour When snow fell on the apple trees And the wood-ash gathered in the fire

I have been so innerly proud, and so long alone, Do not leave me, or I shall break. Do not leave me.

Clerks. We have shut the doors behind us, and the velvet flowers of night Lean about us scattering their pollen grains of golden light.

My love lies underground With her face upturned to mine, And her mouth unclosed in a last long kiss

I am myself at last; now I achieve My very self. I, with the wonder mellow, Full of fine warmth, I issue forth in clear

See the stars, love, In the water much clearer and brighter Than those above us, and whiter,

In the choir the boys are singing the hymn. The morning light on their lips Moves in silver-moist flashes, in musical trim.

A blotch of pallor stirs beneath the high Square picture-dusk, the window of dark sky. A sound subdued in the darkness: tears!

I look at the swaling sunset And wish I could go also Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.

Returning, I find her just the same, At just the same old delicate game. Still she says: "Nay, loose no flame

Always, sweetheart, Carry into your room the blossoming boughs of cherry, Almond and apple and pear diffuse with light, that very

Ah yes, I know you well, a sojourner At the hearth; I know right well the marriage ring you wear,

The cool of an oak's unchequered shade Falls on me as I lie in deep grass Which rushes upward, blade beyond blade,

Yours is the shame and sorrow But the disgrace is mine; Your love was dark and thorough,

The clouds are pushing in grey reluctance slowly northward to you, While north of them all, at the farthest ends, stands one bright-bosomed, aglance With fire as it guards the wild north cloud-coasts, red-fire seas running through

You promised to send me some violets. Did you forget? White ones and blue ones from under the orchard hedge? Sweet dark purple, and white ones mixed for a pledge

A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight, Star-spiders spinning their thread Hang high suspended, withouten respite

I listen to the stillness of you, My dear, among it all; I feel your silence touch my words as I talk,

Please yourself how you have it. Take my words, and fling Them down on the counter roundly;

How many times, like lotus lilies risen Upon the surface of a river, there Have risen floating on my blood the rare

Many roses in the wind Are tapping at the window-sash. A hawk is in the sky; his wings

She is large and matronly And rather dirty, A little sardonic-looking, as if domesticity had driven her to it.

The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window The tassel of the blind swings gently, tapping the pane, As a little wind comes in.

I A woman has given me strength and affluence. Admitted!

Ah God, life, law, so many names you keep, You great, you patient Effort, and you Sleep That does inform this various dream of living,

Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind, The round earth rolls in a clasp of blue sky, And see, where the budding hazels are thinned,

The little pansies by the road have turned Away their purple faces and their gold, And evening has taken all the bees from the thyme,

Out of this oubliette between the mountains five valleys go, five passes like gates; three of them black in shadow, two of them bright

This is the last of all, this is the last! I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire, I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross,

And who has seen the moon, who has not seen Her rise from out the chamber of the deep, Flushed and grand and naked, as from the chamber

A thick mist-sheet lies over the broken wheat. I walk up to my neck in mist, holding my mouth up. Across there, a discoloured moon burns itself out.

Now I am all One bowl of kisses, Such as the tall

Where the minnows trace A glinting web quick hid in the gloom of the brook, When I think of the place

I And so I cross into another world shyly and in homage linger for an invitation

There are only two things now, The great black night scooped out And this fire-glow.

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.

How have I wandered here to this vaulted room In the house of life? - the floor was ruffled with gold Last evening, and she who was softly in bloom,

The stars that open and shut Fall on my shallow breast Like stars on a pool.

The waning moon looks upward; this grey night Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve

Surely you've trodden straight To the very door! Surely you took your fate

On that day I shall put roses on roses, and cover your grave With multitude of white roses: and since you were brave

In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow; And between us and it, the thunder; And down below in the green wheat, the labourers

WE are out on the open road. Through the low west window a cold light flows On the floor where never my numb feet trode

I don't care whether I am beautiful to you You other women. Nothing of me that you see is my own;

Darkness comes out of the earth And swallows dip into the pallor of the west; From the hay comes the clamour of children's mirth;

Through the strait gate of passion, Between the bickering fire Where flames of fierce love tremble

The houses fade in a melt of mist Blotching the thick, soiled air With reddish places that still resist

A wind comes from the north Blowing little flocks of birds Like spray across the town,

The great gold apples of night Hang from the street's long bough Dripping their light

Hollow rang the house when I knocked on the door, And I lingered on the threshold with my hand Upraised to knock and knock once more:

Rigid sleeps the house in darkness, I alone Like a thing unwarrantable cross the hall And climb the stairs to find the group of doors

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me; Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings

Street-Walkers. When into the night the yellow light is roused like dust above the towns, Or like a mist the moon has kissed from off a pool in the midst of the downs,

What pain, to wake and miss you! To wake with a tightened heart, And mouth reaching forward to kiss you!

Why do you spurt and sprottle like that, bunny? Why should I want to throttle

She sits on the recreation ground Under an oak whose yellow buds dot the pale blue sky. The young grass twinkles in the wind, and the sound

Had I but known yesterday, Helen, you could discharge the ache Out of the cloud;

AT the open door of the room I stand and look at the night, Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into sight, Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into the light of the room.

By the Isar, in the twilight We were wandering and singing, By the Isar, in the evening

The hours have tumbled their leaden, monotonous sands And piled them up in a dull grey heap in the West. I carry my patience sullenly through the waste lands;

I am here myself; as though this heave of effort At starting other life, fulfilled my own: Rose-leaves that whirl in colour round a core

Just a few of the roses we gathered from the Isar Are fallen, and their mauve-red petals on the cloth Float like boats on a river, while other

The sun is bleeding its fires upon the mist That huddles in grey heaps coiling and holding back. Like cliffs abutting in shadow a drear grey sea

A Faint, sickening scent of irises Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table A fine proud spike of purple irises

How different, in the middle of snows, the great school rises red! A red rock silent and shadowless, clung round with clusters of shouting lads, Some few dark-cleaving the doorway, souls that cling as the souls of the dead

Between the avenues of cypresses, All in their scarlet cloaks, and surplices Of linen, go the chaunting choristers,

Since this is the last night I keep you home, Come, I will consecrate you for the journey. Rather I had you would not go. Nay come,

Shall I tell you, then, how it is? - There came a cloven gleam Like a tongue of darkened flame

The pale bubbles The lovely pale-gold bubbles of the globe-flowers In a great swarm clotted and single

She said as well to me: "Why are you ashamed? That little bit of your chest that shows between the gap of your shirt, why cover it up?

Waving slowly before me, pushed into the dark, Unseen my hands explore the silence, drawing the bark Of my body slowly behind.

The cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling, Calling, Of a meaningless monotony is palling

Since I lost you I am silence-haunted, Sounds wave their little wings A moment, then in weariness settle

The big mountains sit still in the afternoon light Shadows in their lap; The bees roll round in the wild-thyme with delight.

A snake came to my water-trough On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat, To drink there.

She bade me follow to her garden, where The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup Between the old grey walls; I did not dare

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me! A fine wind is blowing the new direction of Time. If only I let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!

The space of the world is immense, before me and around me; If I turn quickly, I am terrified, feeling space surround me; Like a man in a boat on very clear, deep water, space frightens and confounds me.

Why does the thin grey strand Floating up from the forgotten Cigarette between my fingers,

Ah, through the open door Is there an almond tree Aflame with blossom!

Gold, with an innermost speck Of silver, singing afloat Beneath the night,

Somewhere the long mellow note of the blackbird Quickens the unclasping hands of hazel, Somewhere the wind-flowers fling their heads back,

When along the pavement, Palpitating flames of life, People flicker round me,

O Stiffly shapen houses that change not, What conjuror's cloth was thrown across you, and raised To show you thus transfigured, changed,

The man and the maid go side by side With an interval of space between; And his hands are awkward and want to hide,

Sad as he sits on the white sea-stone And the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon, And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs and the boulders.

I will give you all my keys, You shall be my ch'telaine, You shall enter as you please,

When we came out of the wood Was a great light! The night uprisen stood

My love looks like a girl to-night, But she is old. The plaits that lie along her pillow

If I could have put you in my heart, If but I could have wrapped you in myself, How glad I should have been!

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

Her tawny eyes are onyx of thoughtlessness, Hardened they are like gems in ancient modesty; Yea, and her mouth's prudent and crude caress

Since you did depart Out of my reach, my darling, Into the hidden,

The chime of the bells, and the church clock striking eight Solemnly and distinctly cries down the babel of children still playing in the hay. The church draws nearer upon us, gentle and great

Out of the darkness, fretted sometimes in its sleeping, Jets of sparks in fountains of blue come leaping To sight, revealing a secret, numberless secrets keeping.

In another country, black poplars shake themselves over a pond, And rooks and the rising smoke-waves scatter and wheel from the works beyond; The air is dark with north and with sulphur, the grass is a darker green,

AH, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their faces, Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant groom,

I have fetched the tears up out of the little wells, Scooped them up with small, iron words, Dripping over the runnels.

You, you are all unloving, loveless, you; Restless and lonely, shaken by your own moods, You are celibate and single, scorning a comrade even,

My little love, my darling, You were a doorway to me; You let me out of the confines

THE quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping, Little jets of sunlight-texture imitating flame; Above them, exultant, the pee-wits are sweeping:

Last night a thief came to me And struck at me with something dark. I cried, but no one could hear me,

THE SUN SHINES, The coltsfoot flowers along the railway banks Shine like flat coin which Jove in thanks

On he goes, the little one, Bud of the universe, Pediment of life.

Making his advances He does not look at her, nor sniff at her, No, not even sniff at her, his nose is blank.

I thought he was dumb, I said he was dumb, Yet I've heard him cry.

Along the back of the baby tortoise The scales are locked in an arch like a bridge, Scale-lapping, like a lobster's sections

LONDON Used to wear her lights splendidly, Flinging her shawl-fringe over the River,

The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon Before me lies on the still, pale floor of the sky; The other half of the broken coin of troth

Round the house were lilacs and strawberries And foal-foots spangling the paths, And far away on the sand-hills, dewberries

I Into the shadow-white chamber silts the white Flux of another dawn. The wind that all night

How gorgeous that shock of red lilies, and larkspur cleaving All with a flash of blue! - when will she be leaving Her room, where the night still hangs like a half- folded bat,

You, if you were sensible, When I tell you the stars flash signals, each one dreadful, You would not turn and answer me

You shadow and flame, You interchange, You death in the game!

Now and again All my body springs alive, And the life that is polarised in my eyes,

The Child like mustard-seed Rolls out of the husk of death Into the woman's fertile, fathomless lap.

I Come, my little one, closer up against me, Creep right up, with your round head pushed in my breast.

The five old bells Are hurrying and eagerly calling, Imploring, protesting

Hush then why do you cry? It's you and me

Green star Sirius Dribbling over the lake; The stars have gone so far on their road,

The frost has settled down upon the trees And ruthlessly strangled off the fantasies Of leaves that have gone unnoticed, swept like old

Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed Into awe. No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed