No More Learning

Your golden hair
strewed the sweet whiteness of the pillows
and the counterpane.
O the darkness of the corners,
the warm air, and the stars
framed in the casement of the ships' lights!
The waves lapped into the harbour;
the boats creaked;
a man's voice sang out on the quay;
and you loved me.
In your love were the tall tree fuchsias,
the blue of the hortensias, the scarlet nasturtiums,
the trees on the hills,
the roads we had covered,
and the sea that had borne your body
before the rocks of Hartland.
You loved me with these
and with the kindness of people,
country folk, sailors and fishermen,
and the old lady who had lodged us and supped us.
You loved me with yourself
that was these and more,
changed as the earth is changed
into the bloom of flowers.


HOUSES

Evening and quiet:
a bird trills in the poplar trees
behind the house with the dark green door
across the road.

Into the sky,
the red earthenware and the galvanised iron chimneys
thrust their cowls.
The hoot of the steamers on the Thames is plain.

No wind;
the trees merge, green with green;
a car whirs by;
footsteps and voices take their pitch
in the key of dusk,
far-off and near, subdued.

Solid and square to the world
the houses stand,
their windows blocked with venetian blinds.

Nothing will move them.


EAU-FORTE

On black bare trees a stale cream moon
hangs dead, and sours the unborn buds.

Two gaunt old hacks, knees bent, heads low,
tug, tired and spent, an old horse tram.

Damp smoke, rank mist fill the dark square;
and round the bend six bullocks come.
A hobbling, dirt-grimed drover guides
their clattering feet to death and shame.




D. H. LAWRENCE



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,
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 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?
'T is 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 thief, a rain-storm
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.