D. H. Lawrence

“ At night, I say, when I am gone in sleep, Does my slow heart rebel, do my dead hands Complain of what the day has had them do? Never let it be said I was poltroon At this my task of living, this my dream, This me which rises from the dark of sleep In white flesh robed to drape another dream, As lightning comes all white and trembling From out the cloud of sleep, looks round about One moment, sees, and swift its dream is over, In one rich drip it sinks to another sleep, And sleep thereby is one more dream enrichened. ”

“ Out of mockery we dance together, Out of the sunshine into the shadow, Passing across the shadow into the sunlight, Out of sunlight to shadow. As we dance Your eyes take all of me in as a communication; As we dance I see you, ah, in full! Only to dance together in triumph of being together Two white ones, sharp, vindicated, Shining and touching, Is heaven of our own, sheer with repudiation.
IN THE DARK A BLOTCH of pallor stirs beneath the high Square picture-dusk, the window of dark sky. A sound subdued in the darkness: tears! As if a bird in difficulty up the valley steers. ”

“ Those villagers isolated at the grave Where the candles burn in the daylight, and the painted wreaths Are propped on end, there, where the mystery starts. The naked candles burn on every grave. On your grave, in England, the weeds grow. But I am your naked candle burning, And that is not your grave, in England, The world is your grave. And my naked body standing on your grave Upright towards heaven is burning off to you Its flame of life, now and always, till the end. It is my offering to you; every day is All Souls' Day. ”

“ Probably they think all men adore them, howsoever they pass by. What is it, that, from their faces fresh as spring, such fair, fresh, alert, first-flower faces, like lavender crocuses, snowdrops, like Roman hyacinths, scyllas and yellow-haired hellebore, jonquils, dim anemones, even the sulphur auriculas, flowers that come first from the darkness, and feel cold to the touch, flowers scentless or pungent, ammoniacal almost; what is it, that, from the faces of the fair young women comes like a pungent scent, a vibration beneath that startles me, alarms me, stirs up a repulsion? ”

“ She laughs at me across the table, saying I am beautiful. I look at the rumpled young roses And suddenly realise, in them as in me, How lovely the present is that this day discloses. I AM LIKE A ROSE 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 And single me, perfected from my fellow. Here I am all myself. No rose-bush heaving Its limpid sap to culmination, has brought Itself more sheer and naked out of the green In stark-clear roses, than I to myself am brought. ”

“ The seed is purpose, blossom accident. The seed is all in all, the blossom lent To crown the triumph of this new descent. Is that it, woman? Does it strike you so? The Great Breath blowing a tiny seed of fire Fans out your petals for excess of flame, Till all your being smokes with fine desire? Or are we kindled, you and I, to be One rose of wonderment upon the tree Of perfect life, and is our possible seed But the residuum of the ecstasy? ”

“ Come and lift us towards our culmination, we myriads; we who have never flowered, like patient cactuses. Come and lift us to our end, to blossom, bring us to our summer we who are winter-weary in the winter of the world. Come making the chaffinch nests hollow and cosy, come and soften the willow buds till they are puffed and furred, then blow them over with gold. Come and cajole the gawky colt's-foot flowers. Come quickly, and vindicate us against too much death. Come quickly, and stir the rotten globe of the world from within, burst it with germination, with world anew. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What are you by yourself, do you think, and what The mere fruit of your womb? What is the fruit of your womb then, you mother, you queen, When it falls to the ground? Is it more than the apples of Sodom you scorn so, the men Who abound? Bring forth the sons of your womb then, and put them Into the fire Of Sodom that covers the earth; bring them forth From the womb of your precious desire. You woman most holy, you mother, you being beyond Question or diminution, Add yourself up, and your seed, to the nought Of your last solution. ”

“ Now, in the morning As we sit in the sunshine on the seat by the little shrine, And look at the mountain-walls, Walls of blue shadow, And see so near at our feet in the meadow Myriads of dandelion pappus Bubbles ravelled in the dark green grass Held still beneath the sunshine— It is enough, you are near— The mountains are balanced, The dandelion seeds stay half-submerged in the grass; You and I together We hold them proud and blithe On our love. They stand upright on our love, Everything starts from us, We are the source. ”

“ I will warm your feet with kisses Until they glow.
NEW YEAR'S EVE THERE are only two things now, The great black night scooped out And this fire-glow. This fire-glow, the core, And we the two ripe pips That are held in store. Listen, the darkness rings As it circulates round our fire. Take off your things. Your shoulders, your bruised throat Your breasts, your nakedness! This fiery coat! As the darkness flickers and dips, As the firelight falls and leaps From your feet to your lips! ”

“ Immortality, the heaven, is only a projection of this strange but actual fulfilment, here in the flesh. So, another hunger was supplied, and for this I have to thank one woman, not mankind, for mankind would have prevented me; but one woman, and these are my red-letter thanksgivings. VI To be, or not to be, is still the question. This ache for being is the ultimate hunger. And for myself, I can say "almost, almost, oh, very nearly." Yet something remains. Something shall not always remain. For the main already is fulfilment. What remains in me, is to be known even as I know. ”

“ FORSAKEN AND FORLORN 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 Rift of the river eerily, between the pines, under a sky of stone. Some fireflies drift through the middle air Tinily. I wonder where Ends this darkness that annihilates me.
FIREFLIES IN THE CORN She speaks. Look at the little darlings in the corn! The rye is taller than you, who think yourself So high and mighty: look how the heads are borne Dark and proud on the sky, like a number of knights Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn. ”

“ Turn round, my wife." "No, how cruel you are, you people the sunshine With shadows!"—"With yours I people the sunshine, yours and mine—" "In the darkness we all are gone, we are gone with the trees And the restless river;—we are lost and gone with all these." "But I am myself, I have nothing to do with these." "Come back to bed, let us sleep on our mys- teries. "Come to me here, and lay your body by mine, And I will be all the shadow, you the shine. "Come, you are cold, the night has frightened you. ”

“ The stars have gone so far on their road, Yet we're awake! Without a sound The new young year comes in And is half-way over the lake. We must begin Again. This love so full Of hate has hurt us so, We lie side by side Moored—but no, Let me get up And wash quite clean Of this hate.— So green The great star goes! ”

“ MOONRISE 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 Of finished bridegroom, seen her rise and throw Confession of delight upon the wave, Littering the waves with her own superscription Of bliss, till all her lambent beauty shakes towards us Spread out and known at last, and we are sure That beauty is a thing beyond the grave, That perfect, bright experience never falls To nothingness, and time will dim the moon Sooner than our full consummation here In this odd life will tarnish or pass away. ”

“ They are the issue of acrid winter, these first- flower young women; their scent is lacerating and repellant, it smells of burning snow, of hot-ache, of earth, winter-pressed, strangled in corruption; it is the scent of the fiery-cold dregs of corruption, when destruction soaks through the mortified, decomposing earth, and the last fires of dissolution burn in the bosom of the ground. They are the flowers of ice-vivid mortification, thaw-cold, ice-corrupt blossoms, with a loveliness I loathe; for what kind of ice-rotten, hot-aching heart must they need to root in! ”

“ I tremble so much to hear it, that even now on the threshold of spring, I fear I shall die. Show me the violets that are out. Oh, if it be true, and the living darkness of the blood of man is purpling with violets, if the violets are coming out from under the rack of men, winter-rotten and fallen we shall have spring. Pray not to die on this Pisgah blossoming with violets. Pray to live through. If you catch a whiff of violets from the darkness of the shadow of man it will be spring in the world, it will be spring in the world of the living ”

“ Not like the earth, the spouse all full of increase Moiled over with the rearing of her many-mouthed young; You are single, you are fruitless, phosphorescent, cold and callous, Naked of worship, of love or of adornment, Scorning the panacea even of labour, Sworn to a high and splendid purposelessness Of brooding and delighting in the secret of life's goings, Sea, only you are free, sophisticated. You who toil not, you who spin not, Surely but for you and your like, toiling Were not worth while, nor spinning worth the effort! ”

“ The burden of self-accomplishment! The charge of fulfilment! And God, that she is necessary! Necessary, and I have no choice! Do not leave me. A YOUNG WIFE THE pain of loving you Is almost more than I can bear. I walk in fear of you. The darkness starts up where You stand, and the night comes through Your eyes when you look at me. Ah never before did I see The shadows that live in the sun! Now every tall glad tree Turns round its back to the sun And looks down on the ground, to see The shadow it used to shun. At the foot of each glowing thing A night lies looking up. ”

“ The cloud sheaves in heaven's fields set droop and are drawn in falling seeds of rain; the seed of heaven on my face falling—I hear again like echoes even that softly pace Heaven's muffled floor, the winds that tread out all the grain of tears, the store harvested in the sheaves of pain caught up aloft: the sheaves of dead men that are slain now winnowed soft on the floor of heaven ”

“ Since you are confined in the orbit of me do you not loathe the confinement? Is not even the beauty and peace of an orbit an intolerable prison to you, as it is to everybody? But we will learn to submit each of us to the balanced, eternal orbit wherein we circle on our fate in strange conjunction. What is chaos, my love? It is not freedom. ”

“ Now, from the darkened spaces Of fear, and of frightened faces, Death, in our awful embraces Approached and passed by; We near the flame-burnt porches Where the brands of the angels, like torches Whirl,—in these perilous marches Pausing to sigh; We look back on the withering roses, The stars, in their sun-dimmed closes, Where 'twas given us to repose us Sure on our sanctity; Beautiful, candid lovers, Burnt out of our earthy covers, We might have nestled like plovers In the fields of eternity. ”

“ And all along the path to the cemetery The round dark heads of men crowd silently, And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery. And at the foot of a grave a father stands With sunken head, and forgotten, folded hands; And at the foot of a grave a mother kneels With pale shut face, nor either hears nor feels The coming of the chanting choristers Between the avenue of cypresses, The silence of the many villagers, The candle-flames beside the surplices. ”

“ Oh, yes, the gush of spring is strong enough to toss the globe of earth like a ball on a water-jet dancing sportfully; as you see a tiny celluloid ball tossing on a squint of water for men to shoot at, penny-a-time, in a booth at a fair. The gush of spring is strong enough to play with the globe of earth like a ball on a fountain ”

“ Yet rising from the tomb, from the black oblivion stretching out my hand, my hand flung like a drowned man's hand on a rock, I touched her flank and knew I was carried by the current in death over to the new world, and was climbing out on the shore, risen, not to the old world, the old, changeless I, the old life, wakened not to the old knowledge but to a new earth, a new I, a new knowledge, a new world of time. ”

“ VIII GREEN streams that flow from the innermost continent of the new world, what are they? Green and illumined and travelling for ever dissolved with the mystery of the innermost heart of the continent mystery beyond knowledge or endurance, so sump- tuous out of the well-heads of the new world.— The other, she too has strange green eyes! White sands and fruits unknown and perfumes that never can blow across the dark seas to our usual world! And land that beats with a pulse! ”

“ When I am trodden quite out, quite, quite out every vestige gone, then I am here risen, and setting my foot on another world risen, accomplishing a resurrection risen, not born again, but risen, body the same as before, new beyond knowledge of newness, alive beyond life proud beyond inkling or furthest conception of pride living where life was never yet dreamed of, nor hinted at here, in the other world, still terrestrial myself, the same as before, yet unaccountably new. ”