Twenty Years Ago

Round the house were lilacs and strawberries
    And foal-foots spangling the paths,
And far away on the sand-hills, dewberries
    Caught dust from the sea's long swaths.

Up the wolds the woods were walking,
    And nuts fell out of their hair.
At the gate the nets hung, balking
    The star-lit rush of a hare.

In the autumn fields, the stubble
    Tinkled the music of gleaning.
At a mother's knees, the trouble
    Lost all its meaning.

Yea, what good beginnings
    To this sad end!
Have we had our innings?
    God forfend!

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

On The Balcony

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

The End

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

War-Baby

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

A Winter's Tale

David Herbert Richards Lawrence, Simple Poetry

English

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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

Ballad Of Another Ophelia

OH the green glimmer of apples in the orchard,
Lamps in a wash of rain!
Oh the wet walk of my brown hen through the stack-yard,
Oh tears on the window pane!

Nothing now will ripen the bright green apples,
Full of disappointment and of rain,
Brackish they will taste, of tears, when the yellow dapples
Of autumn tell the withered tale again.

All round the yard it is cluck, my brown hen,
Cluck, and the rain-wet wings,
Cluck, my marigold bird, and again
Cluck for your yellow darlings.

For the grey rat found the gold thirteen
Huddled away in the dark,
Flutter for a moment, oh the beast is quick and keen,
Extinct one yellow-fluffy spark.

Once I had a lover bright like running water,
Once his face was laughing like the sky;
Open like ...

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

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

History

The listless beauty of the hour
When snow fell on the apple trees
And the wood-ash gathered in the fire
And we faced our first miseries.

Then the sweeping sunshine of noon
When the mountains like chariot cars
Were ranked to blue battle - and you and I
Counted our scars.

And then in a strange, grey hour
We lay mouth to mouth, with your face
Under mine like a star on the lake,
And I covered the earth, and all space.

The silent, drifting hours
Of morn after morn
And night drifting up to the night
Yet no pathway worn.

Your life, and mine, my love
Passing on and on, the hate
Fusing closer and closer with love
Till at length they mate.

THE CEARNE

David Herbert Richards Lawrence

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