The Project Gutenberg eBook ofNew PoemsThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: New PoemsAuthor: D. H. LawrenceRelease date: September 22, 2007 [eBook #22726]Most recently updated: April 19, 2019Language: EnglishCredits: Etext produced by Lewis JonesHTML file produced by David Widger*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW POEMS ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: New PoemsAuthor: D. H. LawrenceRelease date: September 22, 2007 [eBook #22726]Most recently updated: April 19, 2019Language: EnglishCredits: Etext produced by Lewis JonesHTML file produced by David Widger
Title: New Poems
Author: D. H. Lawrence
Author: D. H. Lawrence
Release date: September 22, 2007 [eBook #22726]Most recently updated: April 19, 2019
Language: English
Credits: Etext produced by Lewis JonesHTML file produced by David Widger
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW POEMS ***
CONTENTS
APPREHENSION
COMING AWAKE
FROM A COLLEGE WINDOW
FLAPPER
BIRDCAGE WALK
LETTER FROM TOWN: THE
FLAT SUBURBS, S.W., IN THE
THIEF IN THE NIGHT
LETTER FROM TOWN: ON A
SUBURBS ON A HAZY DAY
HYDE PARK AT NIGHT, BEFORE
GIPSY
TWO-FOLD
UNDER THE OAK
SIGH NO MORE
LOVE STORM
PARLIAMENT HILL IN THE
PICCADILLY CIRCUS AT NIGHT
TARANTELLA
IN CHURCH
PIANO
EMBANKMENT AT NIGHT,
PHANTASMAGORIA
NEXT MORNING
PALIMPSEST OF TWILIGHT
EMBANKMENT AT NIGHT,
WINTER IN THE BOULEVARD
SCHOOL ON THE OUTSKIRTS
SICKNESS
EVERLASTING FLOWERS
THE NORTH COUNTRY
BITTERNESS OF DEATH
SEVEN SEALS
READING A LETTER
TWENTY YEARS AGO
INTIME
TWO WIVES
HEIMWEH
DEBACLE
NARCISSUS
AUTUMN SUNSHINE
ON THAT DAY
AND all hours long, the townRoars like a beast in a caveThat is wounded thereAnd like to drown;While days rush, wave after waveOn its lair.An invisible woe unsealsThe flood, so it passes beyondAll bounds: the great old cityRecumbent roars as it feelsThe foamy paw of the pondReach from immensity.But all that it can doNow, as the tide rises,Is to listen and hear the grimWaves crash like thunder throughThe splintered streets, hear noisesRoll hollow in the interim.
WHEN I woke, the lake-lights were quivering on thewall,The sunshine swam in a shoal across and across,And a hairy, big bee hung over the primulasIn the window, his body black fur, and the soundof him cross.There was something I ought to remember: andyetI did not remember. Why should I? The run-ning lightsAnd the airy primulas, obliviousOf the impending bee—they were fair enoughsights.
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,The daisy-froth quiescent, softly in thrall.Beyond the leaves that overhang the street,Along the flagged, clean pavement summer-white,Passes the world with shadows at their feetGoing left and right.Remote, although I hear the beggar's cough,See the woman's twinkling fingers tend him acoin,I sit absolved, assured I am better offBeyond a world I never want to join.
LOVE has crept out of her sealéd heartAs a field-bee, black and amber,Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamberUp the warm grass where the sunbeams start.Mischief has come in her dawning eyes,And a glint of coloured iris bringsSuch as lies along the folded wingsOf the bee before he flies.Who, with a ruffling, careful breath,Has opened the wings of the wild young sprite?Has fluttered her spirit to stumbling flightIn her eyes, as a young bee stumbleth?Love makes the burden of her voice.The hum of his heavy, staggering wingsSets quivering with wisdom the commonthingsThat she says, and her words rejoice.
WHEN the wind blows her veilAnd uncovers her laughterI cease, I turn pale.When the wind blows her veilFrom the woes I bewailOf love and hereafter:When the wind blows her veilI cease, I turn pale.
YOU promised to send me some violets. Did youforget?White ones and blue ones from under the orchardhedge?Sweet dark purple, and white ones mixed for apledgeOf our early love that hardly has opened yet.Here there's an almond tree—you have never seenSuch a one in the north—it flowers on the street,and I standEvery day by the fence to look up for the flowersthat expandAt rest in the blue, and wonder at what they mean.Under the almond tree, the happy landsProvence, Japan, and Italy repose,And passing feet are chatter and clapping ofthoseWho play around us, country girls clapping theirhands.You, my love, the foremost, in a flowered gown,All your unbearable tenderness, you with thelaughterStartled upon your eyes now so wide with here-after,You with loose hands of abandonment hangingdown.
THE new red houses spring like plantsIn level rowsOf reddish herbage that bristles and slantsIts square shadows.The pink young houses show one side brightFlatly assuming the sun,And one side shadow, half in sight,Half-hiding the pavement-run;Where hastening creatures pass intentOn their level way,Threading like ants that can never relentAnd have nothing to say.Bare stems of street-lamps stiffly standAt random, desolate twigs,To testify to a blight on the landThat has stripped their sprigs.
LAST night a thief came to meAnd struck at me with something dark.I cried, but no one could hear me,I lay dumb and stark.When I awoke this morningI could find no trace;Perhaps 'twas a dream of warning,For I've lost my peace.
THE clouds are pushing in grey reluctance slowlynorthward to you,While north of them all, at the farthest ends,stands one bright-bosomed, aglanceWith fire as it guards the wild north cloud-coasts,red-fire seas running throughThe rocks where ravens flying to windward meltas a well-shot lance.You should be out by the orchard, where violetssecretly darken the earth,Or there in the woods of the twilight, withnorthern wind-flowers shaken astir.Think of me here in the library, trying and tryinga song that is worthTears and swords to my heart, arrows no armourwill turn or deter.You tell me the lambs have come, they lie likedaisies white in the grassOf the dark-green hills; new calves in shed;peewits turn after the plough—It is well for you. For me the navvies work in theroad where I passAnd I want to smite in anger the barren rock ofeach waterless brow.Like the sough of a wind that is caught up high inthe mesh of the budding trees,A sudden car goes sweeping past, and I strain mysoul to hearThe voice of the furtive triumphant engine as itrushes past like a breeze,To hear on its mocking triumphance unwittingthe after-echo of fear.
O STIFFLY shapen houses that change not,What conjuror's cloth was thrown across you,and raisedTo show you thus transfigured, changed,Your stuff all gone, your menace almost rased?Such resolute shapes, so harshly setIn hollow blocks and cubes deformed, and heapedIn void and null profusion, how is this?In what strongaqua regianow are you steeped?That you lose the brick-stuff out of youAnd hover like a presentment, fading faintAnd vanquished, evaporate awayTo leave but only the merest possible taint!
Clerks.
WE have shut the doors behind us, and the velvetflowers of nightLean about us scattering their pollen grains ofgolden light.Now at last we lift our faces, and our faces comeaflowerTo the night that takes us willing, liberates us to thehour.Now at last the ink and dudgeon passes from ourfervent eyesAnd out of the chambered weariness wanders aspirit abroad on its enterprise.Not too near and not too farOut of the stress of the crowdMusic screams as elephants screamWhen they lift their trunks and scream aloudFor joy of the night when masters areAsleep and adream.So here I hide in the ShalimarWith a wanton princess slender and proud,And we swoon with kisses, swoon till we seemTwo streaming peacocks gone in a cloudOf golden dust, with star after starOn our stream.
I, THE man with the red scarf,Will give thee what I have, this last week's earn-ings.Take them, and buy thee a silver ringAnd wed me, to ease my yearnings.For the rest, when thou art weddedI'll wet my brow for theeWith sweat, I'll enter a house for thy sake,Thou shalt shut doors on me.
How gorgeous that shock of red lilies, and larkspurcleavingAll with a flash of blue!—when will she be leavingHer room, where the night still hangs like a half-folded bat,And passion unbearable seethes in the darkness, likemust in a vat.
You, if you were sensible,When I tell you the stars flash signals, each onedreadful,You would not turn and answer me"The night is wonderful."Even you, if you knewHow this darkness soaks me through and through,and infusesUnholy fear in my vapour, you would pause to dis-tinguishWhat hurts, from what amuses.For I tell youBeneath this powerful tree, my whole soul's fluidOozes away from me as a sacrifice steamAt the knife of a Druid.Again I tell you, I bleed, I am bound with withies,My life runs out.I tell you my blood runs out on the floor of this oak,Gout upon gout.Above me springs the blood-born mistletoeIn the shady smoke.But who are you, twittering to and froBeneath the oak?What thing better are you, what worse?What have you to do with the mysteriesOf this ancient place, of my ancient curse?What place have you in my histories?
THE cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling,Calling,Of a meaningless monotony is pallingAll my morning's pleasure in the sun-fleck-scatteredwood.May-blossom and blue bird's-eye flowers falling,FallingIn a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawlingMessages of true-love down the dust of the high-road.I do not like to hear the gentle grieving,GrievingOf the she-dove in the blossom, still believingLove will yet again return to her and make all good.When I know that there must ever be deceiving,DeceivingOf the mournful constant heart, that while she'sweavingHer woes, her lover woos and sings within anotherwood.Oh, boisterous the cuckoo shouts, forestalling,StallingA progress down the intricate enthrallingBy-paths where the wanton-headed flowers dofftheir hood.And like a laughter leads me onward, heaving,HeavingA sigh among the shadows, thus retrievingA decent short regret for that which once was verygood.
MANY roses in the windAre tapping at the window-sash.A hawk is in the sky; his wingsSlowly begin to plash.The roses with the west wind rappingAre torn away, and a splashOf red goes down the billowing air.Still hangs the hawk, with the whole sky movingPast him—only a wing-beat provingThe will that holds him there.The daisies in the grass are bending,The hawk has dropped, the wind is spendingAll the roses, and unendingRustle of leaves washes out the rendingCry of a bird.A red rose goes on the wind.—AscendingThe hawk his wind-swept way is wendingEasily down the sky. The daisies, sendingStrange white signals, seem intendingTo show the place whence the scream was heard.But, oh, my heart, what birds are piping!A silver wind is hastily wipingThe face of the youngest rose.And oh, my heart, cease apprehending!The hawk is gone, a rose is tappingThe window-sash as the west-wind blows.Knock, knock, 'tis no more than a red rose rapping,And fear is a plash of wings.What, then, if a scarlet rose goes flappingDown the bright-grey ruin of things!
THE houses fade in a melt of mistBlotching the thick, soiled airWith reddish places that still resistThe Night's slow care.The hopeless, wintry twilight fades,The city corrodes out of sightAs the body corrodes when death invadesThat citadel of delight.Now verdigris smoulderings softly spreadThrough the shroud of the town, as slowNight-lights hither and thither shedTheir ghastly glow.
Street-Walkers.
WHEN into the night the yellow light is roused likedust above the towns,Or like a mist the moon has kissed from off a pool inthe midst of the downs,Our faces flower for a little hour pale and uncertainalong the street,Daisies that waken all mistaken white-spread in ex-pectancy to meetThe luminous mist which the poor things wist wasdawn arriving across the sky,When dawn is far behind the star the dust-lit townhas driven so high.All the birds are folded in a silent ball of sleep,All the flowers are faded from the asphalt isle inthe sea,Only we hard-faced creatures go round and round,and keepThe shores of this innermost ocean alive andillusory.Wanton sparrows that twittered when morninglooked in at their eyesAnd the Cyprian's pavement-roses are gone, andnow it is weFlowers of illusion who shine in our gauds, make aParadiseOn the shores of this ceaseless ocean, gay birds ofthe town-dark sea.
SAD as he sits on the white sea-stoneAnd the suave sea chuckles, and turns to the moon,And the moon significant smiles at the cliffs andthe boulders.He sits like a shade by the flood aloneWhile I dance a tarantella on the rocks, and thecroonOf my mockery mocks at him over the waves'bright shoulders.What can I do but dance alone,Dance to the sliding sea and the moon,For the moon on my breast and the air on my limbsand the foam on my feet?For surely this earnest man has noneOf the night in his soul, and none of the tuneOf the waters within him; only the world's oldwisdom to bleat.I wish a wild sea-fellow would come down theglittering shingle,A soulless neckar, with winking seas in his eyesAnd falling waves in his arms, and the lost soul's kissOn his lips: I long to be soulless, I tingleTo touch the sea in the last surpriseOf fiery coldness, to be gone in a lost soul's bliss.
IN the choir the boys are singing the hymn.The morning light on their lipsMoves in silver-moist flashes, in musical trim.Sudden outside the high window, one crowHangs in the airAnd lights on a withered oak-tree's top of woe.One bird, one blot, folded and still at the topOf the withered tree!—in the grailOf crystal heaven falls one full black drop.Like a soft full drop of darkness it seems to swayIn the tender wineOf our Sabbath, suffusing our sacred day.
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;Taking me back down the vista of years, till I seeA child sitting under the piano, in the boom of thetingling stringsAnd pressing the small, poised feet of a mother whosmiles as she sings.In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of songBetrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belongTo the old Sunday evenings at home, with winteroutsideAnd hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling pianoour guide.So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamourWith the great black piano appassionato. TheglamourOf childish days is upon me, my manhood is castDown in the flood of remembrance, I weep like achild for the past.
Charity.
BY the riverIn the black wet night as the furtive rain slinksdown,Dropping and starting from sleepAlone on a seatA woman crouches.I must go back to her.I want to give herSome money. Her hand slips out of the breast ofher gownAsleep. My fingers creepCarefully over the sweetThumb-mound, into the palm's deep pouches.So, the gift!God, how she starts!And looks at me, and looks in the palm of her hand!And again at me!I turn and runDown the Embankment, run for my life.But why?—why?Because of my heart'sBeating like sobs, I come to myself, and standIn the street spilled over splendidlyWith wet, flat lights. What I've doneI know not, my soul is in strife.The touch was on the quick. I want to forget.
RIGID sleeps the house in darkness, I aloneLike a thing unwarrantable cross the hallAnd climb the stairs to find the group of doorsStanding angel-stern and tall.I want my own room's shelter. But what is thisThrong of startled beings suddenly thrownIn confusion against my entry? Is it only the trees'Large shadows from the outside street lamp blown?Phantom to phantom leaning; strange women weepAloud, suddenly on my mindStartling a fear unspeakable, as the shuddering windBreaks and sobs in the blind.So like to women, tall strange women weeping!Why continually do they cross the bed?Why does my soul contract with unnatural fear?I am listening! Is anything said?Ever the long black figures swoop by the bed;They seem to be beckoning, rushing away, andbeckoning.Whither then, whither, what is it, sayWhat is the reckoning.Tall black Bacchae of midnight, why then, whyDo you rush to assail me?Do I intrude on your rites nocturnal?What should it avail me?Is there some great Iacchos of these slopesSuburban dismal?Have I profaned some female mystery, orgiesBlack and phantasmal?
How have I wandered here to this vaulted roomIn the house of life?—the floor was ruffled with goldLast evening, and she who was softly in bloom,Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilightunfoldFor the flush of the night; whereas now the gloomOf every dirty, must-besprinkled mould,And damp old web of misery's heirloomDeadens this day's grey-dropping arras-fold.And what is this that floats on the undermistOf the mirror towards the dusty grate, as if feelingUnsightly its way to the warmth?—this thing witha listTo the left? this ghost like a candle swealing?Pale-blurred, with two round black drops, as if itmissedItself among everything else, here hungrily stealingUpon me!—my own reflection!—explicit gistOf my presence there in the mirror that leans fromthe ceiling!Then will somebody square this shade with thebeing I knowI was last night, when my soul rang clear as a bellAnd happy as rain in summer? Why should it beso?What is there gone against me, why am I in hell?
DARKNESS comes out of the earthAnd swallows dip into the pallor of the west;From the hay comes the clamour of children'smirth;Wanes the old palimpsest.The night-stock oozes scent,And a moon-blue moth goes flittering by:All that the worldly day has meantWastes like a lie.The children have forsaken their play;A single star in a veil of lightGlimmers: litter of dayIs gone from sight.
Outcasts.
THE night rain, dripping unseen,Comes endlessly kissing my face and my hands.The river, slipping betweenLamps, is rayed with golden bandsHalf way down its heaving sides;Revealed where it hides.Under the bridgeGreat electric carsSing through, and each with a floor-light racingalong at its side.Far off, oh, midge after midgeDrifts over the gulf that barsThe night with silence, crossing the lamp-touchedtide.At Charing Cross, here, beneath the bridgeSleep in a row the outcasts,Packed in a line with their heads against the wall.Their feet, in a broken ridgeStretch out on the way, and a lout castsA look as he stands on the edge of this naked stall.Beasts that sleep will coverTheir faces in their flank; so theseHave huddled rags or limbs on the naked sleep.Save, as the tram-cars hoverPast with the noise of a breezeAnd gleam as of sunshine crossing the low black heap,Two naked faces are seenBare and asleep,Two pale clots swept and swept by the light of thecars.Foam-clots showing betweenThe long, low tidal-heap,The mud-weed opening two pale, shadowless stars.Over the pallor of only two facesPasses the gallivant beam of the trams;Shows in only two sad placesThe white bare bone of our shams.A little, bearded man, pale, peaked in sleeping,With a face like a chickweed flower.And a heavy woman, sleeping still keepingCallous and dour.Over the pallor of only two placesTossed on the low, black, ruffled heapPasses the light of the tram as it racesOut of the deep.Eloquent limbsIn disarraySleep-suave limbs of a youth with long, smooththighsHutched up for warmth; the muddy rimsOf trousers frayOn the thin bare shins of a man who uneasily lies.The balls of five red toesAs red and dirty, bareYoung birds forsaken and left in a nest of mud—Newspaper sheets encloseSome limbs like parcels, and tearWhen the sleeper stirs or turns on the ebb of theflood—One heaped moundOf a woman's kneesAs she thrusts them upward under the ruffled skirt—And a curious dearth of soundIn the presence of theseWastrels that sleep on the flagstones without anyhurt.Over two shadowless, shameless facesStark on the heapTravels the light as it tilts in its pacesGone in one leap.At the feet of the sleepers, watching,Stand those that waitFor a place to lie down; and still as they stand,they sleep,Wearily catchingThe flood's slow gaitLike men who are drowned, but float erect in thedeep.Oh, the singing mansions,Golden-lighted tallTrams that pass, blown ruddily down the night!The bridge on its stanchionsStoops like a pallTo this human blight.On the outer pavement, slowly,Theatre people pass,Holding aloft their umbrellas that flash and arebrightLike flowers of infernal molyOver nocturnal grassWetly bobbing and drifting away on our sight.And still by the rottenRow of shattered feet,Outcasts keep guard.Forgotten,Forgetting, till fate shall deleteOne from the ward.The factories on the Surrey sideAre beautifully laid in black on a gold-grey sky.The river's invisible tideThreads and thrills like ore that is wealth to the eye.And great gold midgesCross the chasmAt the bridgesAbove intertwined plasm.