mono
08-14-2004, 12:24 AM
Hello everyone. While reading some of the many poems by D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), I thought to share a few of my favorites. Enjoy.
Piano
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
---
After the Opera
Down the stone stairs
Girls with their large eyes wide with tragedy
Lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion up at me
And I smile.
Ladies
Stepping like birds with their bright and pointed feet
Peer anxiously forth, as if for a boat to carry them out of the wreckage;
And among the wreck of the theatre crowd
I stand and smile.
They take tragedy so becomingly;
Which pleases me.
But when I meet the weary eyes
The reddened, aching eyes of the bar-man with thin arms,
I am glad to go back to where I came from.
---
Sigh No More
The cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling, calling,
Of a meaningless monotony is palling
All my morning's pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered wood.
May-blossoms and the blue bird's-eye flowers falling, falling
In a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawling
Messages of true-love down the dust of the highroad.
I do not like to hear the gentle grieving, grieving
Of the she-dove in the blossom, still believing
Love will yet again return to her and make all good.
When I know that there must ever be deceiving, deceiving
Of the mournful constant heart, that while she's weaving
Her woes, her lover woos and sings within another wood.
Oh, boisterous the cuckoo shouts, forestalling, stalling
A progress down the intricate enthralling
By-paths where the wanton-headed flowers doff their hood.
And like a laughter lead me onward, heaving, heaving
A sigh among the shadows, thus retrieving
A decent short regret for that which once was very good.
---
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.
Piano
Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings.
In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song
Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.
So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour
With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour
Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.
---
After the Opera
Down the stone stairs
Girls with their large eyes wide with tragedy
Lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion up at me
And I smile.
Ladies
Stepping like birds with their bright and pointed feet
Peer anxiously forth, as if for a boat to carry them out of the wreckage;
And among the wreck of the theatre crowd
I stand and smile.
They take tragedy so becomingly;
Which pleases me.
But when I meet the weary eyes
The reddened, aching eyes of the bar-man with thin arms,
I am glad to go back to where I came from.
---
Sigh No More
The cuckoo and the coo-dove's ceaseless calling, calling,
Of a meaningless monotony is palling
All my morning's pleasure in the sun-fleck-scattered wood.
May-blossoms and the blue bird's-eye flowers falling, falling
In a litter through the elm-tree shade are scrawling
Messages of true-love down the dust of the highroad.
I do not like to hear the gentle grieving, grieving
Of the she-dove in the blossom, still believing
Love will yet again return to her and make all good.
When I know that there must ever be deceiving, deceiving
Of the mournful constant heart, that while she's weaving
Her woes, her lover woos and sings within another wood.
Oh, boisterous the cuckoo shouts, forestalling, stalling
A progress down the intricate enthralling
By-paths where the wanton-headed flowers doff their hood.
And like a laughter lead me onward, heaving, heaving
A sigh among the shadows, thus retrieving
A decent short regret for that which once was very good.
---
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.