In light of recent discussions on poetry and for those interested in Lawrence's
writing technique, I thought this letter to Edward Marsh dated Nov. 19, 1913
might be of interest. Lawrence writes in part:
"I think I read my poetry more by length than by stress as a matter of
movements in space than footsteps hitting the earth. . . .I think more of a bird with broad wings flying and lapsing through the air, than anything, when I think of metre. . . .It all depends on the pause, the natural pause, the natural lingering of the voice according to the feeling--it is the hidden emotional pattern that makes poetry, not the obvious form. . . .It is the lapse of the feeling, something as indefinite as expression in the voice carrying emotion. It doesn't depend on the ear, particularly, but on the sensitive soul. And the ear gets a habit, and becomes master, when the ebbing and lifting emotion should be master, and the ear the transmitter. If your ear has got stiff and a bit mechanical, don't blame my poetry. . . .
I can't tell you what pattern I see in any poetry, save one complete
thing. But surely you don't class poetry among the decorative or conventional
arts. I always wonder if the Greeks and Romans really did scan, or if scansion
wasn't a thing invented afterwards by the schoolmaster. Yet I seem to find
about the same number of long lingering notes in each line." (Collected
Letters of DHL, p. 242-44/Vol. I, ed. by H.T. Moore, Heinemann)
The letter includes examples of how Lawrence scans poetry including some lines
of his own from "Roses on the Breakfast Table"/"All of Roses."