D.H. 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 stackyard,

O, 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 the sky looking down in all its laughter

On the buttercups -- and buttercups was I.

What then is there hidden in the skirts of all the blossom,

What is peeping from your wings, oh mother hen?

'Tis the sun who asks the question, in a lovely haste for wisdom --

What a lovely haste for wisdom is in men?

Yea, but it is cruel when undressed is all the blossom,

And her shift is lying white upon the floor,

That a grey one, like a shadow, like a rat, a thie, a rainstorm

Creeps upon her then and gathers in his store.

Oh, the grey garner that is full of half-grown apples,

Oh, the golden sparkles laid extinct -- !

And oh, behind the cloud sheaves, like yellow autumn dapples,

Did you see the wicked sun that winked?

Illicit

IN front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of rainbow,

And between us and it, the thunder;

And down below, in the green wheat, the labourers

Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.

You are near to me, and your naked feet in their sandals,

And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber

I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber

Lightning falls from heaven.

Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats

A dark boat through the gloom -- and whither?

The thunder roars. But still we have each other.

The naked lightnings in the heaven dither

And disappear. What have we but each other?

The boat has gone.

Fireflies in the Corn

A Woman taunts her Lover

LOOK at the little darlings in the corn!

The rye is taller than you, who think yourself

So high and mighty: look how its heads are borne

Dark and proud in the sky, like a number of knights

Passing with spears and pennants and manly scorn.

And always likely! -- Oh, if I could ride

With my head held high-serene against the sky

Do you think I'd have a creature like you at my side

With your gloom and your doubt that you love me?

O darling rye,

How I adore you for your simple pride!

And those bright fireflies wafting in between

And over the swaying cornstalks, just above

All their dark-feathered helmets, like little green

Stars come low and wandering here for love

Of this dark earth, and wandering all serene -- !

How I adore you, you happy things, you dears

Riding the air and carrying all the time

Your little lanterns behind you: it cheers

My heart to see you settling and trying to climb

The cornstalks, tipping with fire their spears.

All over the corn's dim motion, against the blue

Dark sky of night, the wandering glitter, the swarm

Of questing brilliant things: -- you joy, you true

Spirit of careless joy: ah, how I warm

My poor and perished soul at the joy of you!

The Man answers and she mocks

You're a fool, woman. I love you and you know I do!

-- Lord, take his love away, it makes him whine.

And I give you everything that you want me to.

-- Lord, dear Lord, do you think he ever can shine?

A Woman and Her Dead Husband

AH, stern cold man,

How can you lie so relentless hard

While I wash you with weeping water!

Ah, face, carved hard and cold,

You have been like this, on your guard

Against me, since death began.

You masquerader!

How can you shame to act this part

Of unswerving indifference to me?

It is not you; why disguise yourself

Against me, to break my heart,

You evader?

You've a warm mouth,

A good warm mouth always sooner to soften

Even than your sudden eyes.

Ah cruel, to keep your mouth

Relentless, however often

I kiss it in drouth.

You are not he.

Who are you, lying in his pace on the bed

And rigid and indifferent to me?

His mouth, though he laughed or sulked

Was always warm and red

And good to me.

And his eyes could see

The white moon hang like a breast revealed

By the slipping shawl of stars,

Could see the small stars tremble

As the heart beneath did wield

Systole, diastole.

And he showed it me

So, when he made his love to me;

And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out,

And his eyes were deep like the sea

With shadow, and he looked at me,

Till I sank in him like the sea,

Awfully.

Oh, he was multiform --

Which then was he among the manifold?

The gay, the sorrowful, the seer?

I have loved a rich race of men in one --

-- But not this, this never-warm

Metal-cold -- !

Ah, masquerader!

With your steel face white-enamelled

Were you he, after all, and I never

Saw you or felt you in kissing?

-- Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled

With fear, evader!

You will not stir,

Nor hear me, not a sound.

-- Then it was you --

And all this time you were

Like this when I lived with you.

It is not true,

I am frightened, I am frightened of you

And of everything.

O God! -- God too

Has deceived me in everything,

In everything.

The Mowers

THERE'S four men mowing down by the river;

    I can hear the sound of the scythe strokes, four

Sharp breaths swishing: -- yea, but I

    Am sorry for what's i' store.

The first man out o' the four that's mowin'

    Is mine: I mun claim him once for all:

-- But I'm sorry for him, on his young feet, knowin'

    None o' the trouble he's led to stall.

As he sees me bringin' the dinner, he lifts

    His head as proud as a deer that looks

Shoulder-deep out o' th' corn: and wipes

    His scythe blade bright, unhooks

His scythe stone, an' over the grass to me!

    -- Lad, tha's gotten a chilt in me,

An' a man an' a father tha'lt ha'e to be,

    My young slim lad, an' I'm sorry for thee.

Scent of Irises

A FAINT, sickening scent of irises

Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table

A fine proud spike of purple irises

Rising above the clsss-room litter, makes me unable

To see the class's lifted and bended faces

Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable.

I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless

Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast

You with fire on your brow and your cheeks and your chin as you dipped

Your face in your marigold bunch, to touch and contrast

Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks

Dissolved in the golden sorcery you should not outlast.

You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation,

You sitting in the cowslips of the meadows above,

-- Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-bobs,

Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love --

You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,

You, with your face all rich, like the sheen on a dove -- !

You are always asking, do I remember, remember

The buttercup bog-end where the flowers rose up

And kindled you over deep with a coat of gold?

You ask again, do the healing days close up

The open darkness which then drew us in,

The dark that swallows all, and nought throws up.

You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night

Burnt like a sacrifice; -- you invisible --

Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!

-- And yes, thank God, it still is possible

The healing days shall close the darkness up

Wherein I breathed you like a smoke or dew.

Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,

The golden fire has gone, and your face is ash

Indistinguishable in the grey, chill day,

The night has burnt you out, at last the good

Dark fire burns on untroubled without clash

Of you upon the dead leaves saying me yea.

Green

THE sky was apple-green,

The sky was green wine held up in the sun,

The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green

They shone, clear like flowers undone,

For the first time, now for the first time seen.