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.

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English writer, poet, and essayist best known for his novels 'Sons and Lovers,' 'The Rainbow,' 'Women in Love,' and 'Lady Chatterley's Lover.' His works explore themes of emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, and instinct. Lawrence's opinions and artistic works earned him many enemies and he was frequently censored. Today, he is regarded as one of the most influential writers of the 20th century.

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

Dissolute

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

Flapper

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

Martyr À La Mode

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

Week-Night Service

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

English

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Quite Forsaken

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

This then at last is the dawn, and the bell
    Clanging at the farm! Such bewilderment
Comes with the sight of the room, I cannot tell.

It is raining. Down the half-obscure road
    Four labourers pass with their scythes
Dejectedly; - a huntsman goes by with his load:

A gun, and a bunched-up deer, its four little feet
    Clustered dead. - And this is the dawn
For which I wanted the night to retreat!

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

Nostalgia

The waning moon looks upward; this grey night
Slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve
Of easy sailing; odd red wicks serve
To show where the ships at sea move out of sight.

The place is palpable me, for here I was born
Of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below
Is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know
I have come, I feel them whimper in welcome, and mourn.

My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn
And the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear
No sound from the strangers, the place is dark, and fear
Opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seems torn.

Can I go no nearer, never towards the door?
The ghosts and I we mourn together, and shrink
In the shadow of the cart-shed. Must we hover on the brink
Forever, and nev...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

Ruination

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
Some street-ends thrust forward their stack.

On the misty waste-lands, away from the flushing grey
Of the morning the elms are loftily dimmed, and tall
As if moving in air towards us, tall angels
Of darkness advancing steadily over us all.

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

At The Window

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.

Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede,
Winding about their dimness the mist's grey cerements, after
The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to bleed.

The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as they pass
To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with two dark-filled eyes
That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window glass.

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

Elysium

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

Full of sweet stillness
That no noise can transgress
Never a lamp distress.

The full moon sank in state.
I saw her stand and wait
For her watchers to shut the gate.

Then I found myself in a wonderland
All of shadow and of bland
Silence hard to understand.

I waited therefore; then I knew
The presence of the flowers that grew
Noiseless, their wonder noiseless blew.

And flashing kingfishers that flew
In sightless beauty, and the few
Shadows the passing wild-beast threw.

And Eve approaching over the ground
Unheard and subtle, never a sound
To let me know that I was found.

Invisible the hands of Eve
Upon me travel...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

Restlessness

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.
I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light,
And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is always fecund, which might
Mate my hungry soul with a germ of its womb.

I will go out to the night, as a man goes down to the shore
To draw his net through the surfs thin line, at the dawn before
The sun warms the sea, little, lonely and sad, sifting the sobbing tide.
I will sift the surf that edges the night, with my net, the four
Strands of my eyes and my lips and my hands and my feet, sifting the store
Of flotsam until my soul is tired or satisfied.

I will catch in my eyes...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence