Poems by David Herbert Lawrence

As a drenched, drowned bee

When the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass

The yellow sun steps over the mountain-top

As I went through the marshes a doe sprang out of the corn and flashed up the hill-side leaving her fawn.

Reject me not if I should say to you

Mournfully to and fro, to and fro the trees are waving;

Close your eyes, my love, let me make you blind;

Yesterday the fields were only grey with scattered snow,

The pain of loving you

There are four men mowing down by the Isar;

I wonder if with you, as it is with me,

Down the stone stairs

They are chanting now the service of All the 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 muffl

The hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,

And all hours long, the town

The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters

The plane leaves

The sun sets out the autumn crocuses

You know what it is to be born alone,

FIRST PART

OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,

When the wind blows her veil

This fireglow is a red womb

I

The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over

The town has opened to the sun.

And because you love me

So you are lost to me!

A yellow leaf from the darkness

The shorn moon trembling indistinct on her path,

When I woke, the lake-lights were quivering on the wall,

I wish it were spring in the world.

The trees in trouble because of autumn,

Take off your cloak and your hat

It is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to the pane,

Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,

Many years have I still to burn, detained

The acrid scents of autumn,

It is Isis the mystery

My world is a painted fresco, where coloured shapes

I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill

Too far away, oh love, I know,

Since I lost you, my darling, the sky has come near,

The sun immense and rosy

I have found a place of loneliness

Charity.

Outcasts.

Patience, little Heart.

Who do you think stands watching

The red range heaves and compulsory sways, ah see! in the flush of a march

I wonder, can the night go by;

She speaks.

The darkness steals the forms of all the queens,

The night was a failure but why not - ?

Love has crept out of her sealéd heart

The new red houses spring like plants

The house is silent, it is late at night, I am alone.

You have come your way, I have come my way;

The glimmer of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping,

It is not long since, here among all these folk

Along the avenue of cypresses

I, the man with the red scarf,

When she rises in the morning

The night turns slowly round,

The dawn was apple-green,

When you went, how was it you carried with you

A Review in Hyde Park 1913.

Far-Off the lily-statues stand white-ranked in the garden at home.

The listless beauty of the hour

I have been so innerly proud, and so long alone,

Clerks.

My love lies underground

I am myself at last; now I achieve

See the stars, love,

In the choir the boys are singing the hymn.

A blotch of pallor stirs beneath the high

I look at the swaling sunset

Returning, I find her just the same,

Always, sweetheart,

Ah yes, I know you well, a sojourner

The cool of an oak's unchequered shade

Yours is the shame and sorrow

The clouds are pushing in grey reluctance slowly northward to you,

You promised to send me some violets. Did you forget?

A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight,

I listen to the stillness of you,

Please yourself how you have it.

How many times, like lotus lilies risen

Many roses in the wind

She is large and matronly

The sick grapes on the chair by the bed lie prone; at the window

I

Ah God, life, law, so many names you keep,

Round clouds roll in the arms of the wind,

Out of this oubliette between the mountains

This is the last of all, this is the last!

And who has seen the moon, who has not seen

A thick mist-sheet lies over the broken wheat.

Now I am all

Where the minnows trace

I

There are only two things now,

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

How have I wandered here to this vaulted room

The stars that open and shut

The waning moon looks upward; this grey night

Surely you've trodden straight

On that day

In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow;

WE are out on the open road.

I don't care whether I am beautiful to you

Darkness comes out of the earth

Through the strait gate of passion,

The houses fade in a melt of mist

A wind comes from the north

The great gold apples of night

Hollow rang the house when I knocked on the door,

Rigid sleeps the house in darkness, I alone

Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;

Street-Walkers.

What pain, to wake and miss you!

Why do you spurt and sprottle

She sits on the recreation ground

Had I but known yesterday,

AT the open door of the room I stand and look at the night,

By the Isar, in the twilight

The hours have tumbled their leaden, monotonous sands

I am here myself; as though this heave of effort

Just a few of the roses we gathered from the Isar

The sun is bleeding its fires upon the mist

A Faint, sickening scent of irises

How different, in the middle of snows, the great school rises red!

Since this is the last night I keep you home,

Shall I tell you, then, how it is? -

The pale bubbles

She said as well to me: "Why are you ashamed?

Waving slowly before me, pushed into the dark,

The cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling,

Since I lost you I am silence-haunted,

The big mountains sit still in the afternoon light

She bade me follow to her garden, where

Not I, not I, but the wind that blows through me!

The space of the world is immense, before me and around me;

Why does the thin grey strand

Ah, through the open door

Gold, with an innermost speck

Somewhere the long mellow note of the blackbird

When along the pavement,

O Stiffly shapen houses that change not,

The man and the maid go side by side

Sad as he sits on the white sea-stone

I will give you all my keys,

When we came out of the wood

My love looks like a girl to-night,

If I could have put you in my heart,

This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

Her tawny eyes are onyx of thoughtlessness,

Since you did depart

The chime of the bells, and the church clock striking eight

Out of the darkness, fretted sometimes in its sleeping,

In another country, black poplars shake themselves over a pond,

AH, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall loom

I have fetched the tears up out of the little wells,

You, you are all unloving, loveless, you;

My little love, my darling,

THE quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping,

Last night a thief came to me

THE SUN SHINES,

On he goes, the little one,

Making his advances

I thought he was dumb,

Along the back of the baby tortoise

LONDON

The moon is broken in twain, and half a moon

Round the house were lilacs and strawberries

I

How gorgeous that shock of red lilies, and larkspur cleaving

You, if you were sensible,

You shadow and flame,

Now and again

The Child like mustard-seed

I

The five old bells

Hush then

Green star Sirius

The frost has settled down upon the trees

Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed