Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence (Illustrated), page 818
He grows distinct, and I see his hot
Face freed of the wavering blaze.
Then I shall know which image of God
My man is made toward,
And I shall know my bitter rod
Or my rich reward.
And I shall know the stamp and worth
Of the coin I’ve accepted as mine,
Shall see an image of heaven or of earth
On his minted metal shine.
Yea and I long to see him sleep
In my power utterly,
I long to know what I have to keep,
I long to see
My love, that spinning coin, laid still
And plain at the side of me,
For me to count — for I know he will
Greatly enrichen me.
And then he will be mine, he will lie
In my power utterly,
Opening his value plain to my eye
He will sleep of me.
He will lie negligent, resign
His all to me, and I
Shall watch the dawn light up for me
This sleeping wealth of mine.
And I shall watch the wan light shine
On his sleep that is filled of me,
On his brow where the wisps of fond hair twine
So truthfully,
On his lips where the light breaths come and go
Naïve and winsomely,
On his limbs that I shall weep to know
Lie under my mastery.
KISSES IN THE TRAIN
I saw the midlands
Revolve through her hair;
The fields of autumn
Stretching bare,
And sheep on the pasture
Tossed back in a scare.
And still as ever
The world went round,
My mouth on her pulsing
Neck was found,
And my breast to her beating
Breast was bound.
But my heart at the centre
Of all, in a swound
Was still as a pivot,
As all the ground
On its prowling orbit
Shifted round.
And still in my nostrils
The scent of her flesh,
And still my wet mouth
Sought her afresh;
And still one pulse
Through the world did thresh.
And the world all whirling
Around in joy
Like the dance of a dervish
Did destroy
My sense — and my reason
Spun like a toy.
But firm at the centre
My heart was found;
Her own to my perfect
Heart-beat bound,
Like a magnet’s keeper
Closing the round.
CRUELTY AND LOVE
What large, dark hands are those at the window
Lifted, grasping the golden light
Which weaves its way through the creeper leaves
To my heart’s delight?
Ah, only the leaves! But in the west,
In the west I see a redness come
Over the evening’s burning breast —
— ‘Tis the wound of love goes home!
The woodbine creeps abroad
Calling low to her lover:
The sun-lit flirt who all the day
Has poised above her lips in play
And stolen kisses, shallow and gay
Of pollen, now has gone away
— She woos the moth with her sweet, low word,
And when above her his broad wings hover
Then her bright breast she will uncover
And yield her honey-drop to her lover.
Into the yellow, evening glow
Saunters a man from the farm below,
Leans, and looks in at the low-built shed
Where hangs the swallow’s marriage bed.
The bird lies warm against the wall.
She glances quick her startled eyes
Towards him, then she turns away
Her small head, making warm display
Of red upon the throat. His terrors sway
Her out of the nest’s warm, busy ball,
Whose plaintive cry is heard as she flies
In one blue stoop from out the sties
Into the evening’s empty hall.
Oh, water-hen, beside the rushes
Hide your quaint, unfading blushes,
Still your quick tail, and lie as dead,
Till the distance folds over his ominous tread.
The rabbit presses back her ears,
Turns back her liquid, anguished eyes
And crouches low: then with wild spring
Spurts from the terror of his oncoming
To be choked back, the wire ring
Her frantic effort throttling:
Piteous brown ball of quivering fears!
Ah soon in his large, hard hands she dies,
And swings all loose to the swing of his walk.
Yet calm and kindly are his eyes
And ready to open in brown surprise
Should I not answer to his talk
Or should he my tears surmise.
I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair
Watching the door open: he flashes bare
His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes
In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise
He flings the rabbit soft on the table board
And comes towards me: ah, the uplifted sword
Of his hand against my bosom, and oh, the broad
Blade of his hand that raises my face to applaud
His coming: he raises up my face to him
And caresses my mouth with his fingers, which still smell grim
Of the rabbit’s fur! God, I am caught in a snare!
I know not what fine wire is round my throat,
I only know I let him finger there
My pulse of life, letting him nose like a stoat
Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood:
And down his mouth comes to my mouth, and down
His dark bright eyes descend like a fiery hood
Upon my mind: his mouth meets mine, and a flood
Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown
Within him, die, and find death good.
CHERRY ROBBERS
Under the long, dark boughs, like jewels red
In the hair of an Eastern girl
Shine strings of crimson cherries, as if had bled
Blood-drops beneath each curl.
Under the glistening cherries, with folded wings
Three dead birds lie:
Pale-breasted throstles and a blackbird, robberlings
Stained with red dye.
Under the haystack a girl stands laughing at me,
With cherries hung round her ears —
Offering me her scarlet fruit: I will see
If she has any tears.
LILIES IN THE FIRE
I
Ah, you stack of white lilies, all white and gold,
A am adrift as a sunbeam, and without form
Or having, save I light on you to warm
Your pallor into radiance, flush your cold
White beauty into incandescence: you
Are not a stack of white lilies tonight, but a white
And clustered star transfigured by me tonight,
And lighting these ruddy leaves like a star dropped through
The slender bare arms of the branches, your tire-maidens
Who lift swart arms to fend me off; but I come
Like a wind of fire upon you, like to some
Stray whitebeam who on you his fire unladens.
And you are a glistening toadstool shining here
Among the crumpled beech-leaves phosphorescent,
My stack of white lilies burning incandescent
Of me, a soft white star among the leaves, my dear.
II
Is it with pain, my dear, that you shudder so?
Is it because I have hurt you with pain, my dear?
Did I shiver? — Nay, truly I did not know —
A dewdrop may-be splashed on my face down here.
Why even now you speak through close-shut teeth,
I have been too much for you — Ah, I remember!
The ground is a little chilly underneath
The leaves — and, dear, you consume me all to an ember.
You hold yourself all hard as if my kisses
Hurt as I gave them — you put me away —
Ah never I put you away: yet each kiss hisses
Hot as a drop of fire wastes me away.
III
I am ashamed, you wanted me not to-night —
Nay, it is always so, you sigh with me.
Your radiance dims when I draw too near, and my free
Fire enters your petals like death, you wilt dead white.
Ah, I do know, and I am deep ashamed;
You love me while I hover tenderly
Like clinging sunbeams kissing you: but see
When I close in fire upon you, and you are flamed
With the swiftest fire of my love, you are destroyed.
‘Tis a degradation deep to me, that my best
Soul’s whitest lightning which should bright attest
God stepping down to earth in one white stride,
Means only to you a clogged, numb burden of flesh
Heavy to bear, even heavy to uprear
Again from earth, like lilies wilted and sere
Flagged on the floor, that before stood up so fresh.
COLDNESS IN LOVE
And you remember, in the afternoon
The sea and the sky went grey, as if there had sunk
A flocculent dust on the floor of the world: the festoon
Of the sky sagged dusty as spider cloth,
And coldness clogged the sea, till it ceased to croon.
A dank, sickening scent came up from the grime
Of weed that blackened the shore, so that I recoiled
Feeling the raw cold dun me: and all the time
You leapt about on the slippery rocks, and threw
The words that rang with a brassy, shallow chime.
And all day long that raw and ancient cold
Deadened me through, till the grey downs darkened to sleep.
Then I longed for you with your mantle of love to fold
Me over, and drive from out of my body the deep
Cold that had sunk to my soul, and there kept hold.
But still to me all evening long you were cold,
And I was numb with a bitter, deathly ache;
Till old days drew me back into their fold,
And dim sheep crowded me warm with companionship,
And old ghosts clustered me close, and sleep was cajoled.
I slept till dawn at the window blew in like dust,
Like the linty, raw-cold dust disturbed from the floor
Of a disused room: a grey pale light like must
That settled upon my face and hands till it seemed
To flourish there, as pale mould blooms on a crust.
Then I rose in fear, needing you fearfully,
For I thought you were warm as a sudden jet of blood.
I thought I could plunge in your spurting hotness, and be
Clean of the cold and the must. — With my hand on the latch
I heard you in your sleep speak strangely to me.
And I dared not enter, feeling suddenly dismayed.
So I went and washed my deadened flesh in the sea
And came back tingling clean, but worn and frayed
With cold, like the shell of the moon: and strange it seems
That my love has dawned in rose again, like the love of a maid.
END OF ANOTHER HOME
When shall I see the half-moon sink again
Behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden?
When will the scent of the dim white phlox
Creep up the wall to me, and in at my open window?
Why is it, the long, slow stroke of the midnight bell
(Will it never finish the twelve?)
Falls again and again on my heart with a heavy reproach?
The moon-mist is over the village, out of the mist speaks the bell,
And all the little roofs of the village bow low, pitiful, beseeching, resigned.
–Speak, you my home! what is it I don’t do well?
Ah home, suddenly I love you
As I hear the sharp clean trot of a pony down the road,
Succeeding sharp little sounds dropping into silence
Clear upon the long-drawn hoarseness of a train across the valley.
The light has gone out, from under my mother’s door.
That she should love me so!–
She, so lonely, greying now!
And I leaving her,
Bent on my pursuits!
Love is the great Asker.
The sun and the rain do not ask the secret
Of the time when the grain struggles down in the dark.
The moon walks her lonely way without anguish,
Because no-one grieves over her departure.
Forever, ever by my shoulder pitiful love will linger,
Crouching as little houses crouch under the mist when I turn.
Forever, out of the mist, the church lifts up a reproachful finger
Pointing my eyes in wretched defiance where love hides her face to mourn.
Oh! but the rain creeps down to wet the grain
That struggles alone in the dark,
And asking nothing, patiently steals back again!
The moon sets forth o’nights
To walk the lonely, dusky heights
Serenely, with steps unswerving;
Pursued by no sigh of bereavement,
No tears of love unnerving
Her constant tread
While ever at my side,
Frail and sad, with grey, bowed head,
The beggar-woman, the yearning-eyed
Inexorable love goes lagging.
The wild young heifer, glancing distraught,
With a strange new knocking of life at her side
Runs seeking a loneliness.
The little grain draws down the earth, to hide.
Nay, even the slumberous egg, as it labours under the shell
Patiently to divide and self-divide,
Asks to be hidden, and wishes nothing to tell.
But when I draw the scanty cloak of silence over my eyes
Piteous love comes peering under the hood;
Touches the clasp with trembling fingers, and tries
To put her ear to the painful sob of my blood;
While her tears soak through to my breast,
Where they burn and cauterize.
The moon lies back and reddens.
In the valley a corncrake calls
Monotonously,
With a plaintive, unalterable voice, that deadens
My confident activity;
With a hoarse, insistent request that falls
Unweariedly, unweariedly,
Asking something more of me,
Yet more of me.
REMINDER
Do you remember
How night after night swept level and low
Overhead, at home, and had not one star,
Nor one narrow gate for the moon to go
Forth to her field of November.
And you remember,
How towards the north a red blot on the sky
Burns like a blotch of anxiety
Over the forges, and small flames ply
Like ghosts the shadow of the ember.
Those were the days
When it was awful autumn to me,
When only there glowed on the dark of the sky
The red reflection of her agony,
My beloved smelting down in the blaze
Of death — my dearest
Love who had borne, and was now leaving me.
And I at the foot of her cross did suffer
My own gethsemane.
So I came to you,
And twice, after great kisses, I saw
The rim of the moon divinely rise
And strive to detach herself from the raw
Blackened edge of the skies.
Strive to escape;
With her whiteness revealing my sunken world
Tall and loftily shadowed. But the moon
Never magnolia-like unfurled
Her white, her lamp-like shape.
for you told me no,
And bade me not to ask for the dour
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 of 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
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.
