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

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

The Prophet

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

Martyr À La Mode

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

The Bride

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

English

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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

Last Hours

The cool of an oak's unchequered shade
Falls on me as I lie in deep grass
Which rushes upward, blade beyond blade,
While higher the darting grass-flowers pass
Piercing the blue with their crocketed spires
And waving flags, and the ragged fires
Of the sorrel's cresset - a green, brave town
Vegetable, new in renown.

Over the tree's edge, as over a mountain
Surges the white of the moon,
A cloud comes up like the surge of a fountain,
Pressing round and low at first, but soon
Heaving and piling a round white dome.
How lovely it is to be at home
Like an insect in the grass
Letting life pass.

There's a scent of clover crept through my hair
From the full resource of some purple dome
Where that lumbering bee, who can hardly bear
His burden ab...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

Next Morning

How have I wandered here to this vaulted room
In the house of life? - the floor was ruffled with gold
Last evening, and she who was softly in bloom,
Glimmered as flowers that in perfume at twilight unfold

For the flush of the night; whereas now the gloom
Of every dirty, must-besprinkled mould,
And damp old web of misery's heirloom
Deadens this day's grey-dropping arras-fold.

And what is this that floats on the undermist
Of the mirror towards the dusty grate, as if feeling
Unsightly its way to the warmth? - this thing with a list
To the left? this ghost like a candle swealing?

Pale-blurred, with two round black drops, as if it missed
Itself among everything else, here hungrily stealing
Upon me! - my own reflection! - explicit gist
Of my presence th...

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

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.

"Why have you gone to the window? Why don't you sleep?
How you have wakened me! But why, why do you weep?"

"I am afraid of you, I am afraid, afraid!
There is something in you destroys me - !"

"You have dreamed and are not awake, come here to me."
"No, I have wakened. It is you, you are cruel to me!"

"My dear!" - "Yes, yes, you are cruel to me. You cast
A shadow over my breasts that will kill me at last."

"Come!" - "No, I'm a thing of life. I give
You armfuls of sunshine, and you won't let me live."

"Nay, I'm too sleepy!" - "A...

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

Dreams Old And Nascent - Old
I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill
Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon
Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still
In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.

The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,
Like savage music striking far off, and there
On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and shine
Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.

There lies the world, my darling, full of wonder and wistfulness and strange
Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as I greet the cloud
Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range
At the back of my life's horizon, where the dreamings of past lives crowd.

Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil
Of the afternoon ...
David Herbert Richards Lawrence