The Poetry of D. H. Lawrence. D. H. Lawrence

Чтение книги онлайн.

Читать онлайн книгу The Poetry of D. H. Lawrence - D. H. Lawrence страница 19

Автор:
Серия:
Издательство:
The Poetry of D. H. Lawrence - D. H. Lawrence

Скачать книгу

voice in a silence of blood, 'neath the noise of the ash.

      Virgin Youth

       Table of Contents

      Now and again

       All my body springs alive,

       And the life that is polarised in my eyes,

       That quivers between my eyes and mouth,

       Flies like a wild thing across my body,

       Leaving my eyes half-empty, and clamorous,

       Filling my still breasts with a flush and a flame,

       Gathering the soft ripples below my breasts

       Into urgent, passionate waves,

       And my soft, slumbering belly

       Quivering awake with one impulse of desire,

       Gathers itself fiercely together;

       And my docile, fluent arms

       Knotting themselves with wild strength

       To clasp what they have never clasped.

       Then I tremble, and go trembling

       Under the wild, strange tyranny of my body,

       Till it has spent itself,

       And the relentless nodality of my eyes reasserts itself,

       Till the bursten flood of life ebbs back to my eyes,

       Back from my beautiful, lonely body

       Tired and unsatisfied.

      Monologue of a Mother

       Table of Contents

      This is the last of all, this is the last!

       I must hold my hands, and turn my face to the fire,

       I must watch my dead days fusing together in dross,

       Shape after shape, and scene after scene from my past

       Fusing to one dead mass in the sinking fire

       Where the ash on the dying coals grows swiftly, like heavy moss.

       Strange he is, my son, whom I have awaited like a lover,

       Strange to me like a captive in a foreign country, haunting

       The confines and gazing out on the land where the wind is free;

       White and gaunt, with wistful eyes that hover

       Always on the distance, as if his soul were chaunting

       The monotonous weird of departure away from me.

       Like a strange white bird blown out of the frozen seas,

       Like a bird from the far north blown with a broken wing

       Into our sooty garden, he drags and beats

       From place to place perpetually, seeking release

       From me, from the hand of my love which creeps up, needing

       His happiness, whilst he in displeasure retreats.

       I must look away from him, for my faded eyes

       Like a cringing dog at his heels offend him now,

       Like a toothless hound pursuing him with my will,

       Till he chafes at my crouching persistence, and a sharp spark flies

       In my soul from under the sudden frown of his brow,

       As he blenches and turns away, and my heart stands still.

       This is the last, it will not be any more.

       All my life I have borne the burden of myself,

       All the long years of sitting in my husband's house,

       Never have I said to myself as he closed the door:

       "Now I am caught!—You are hopelessly lost, O Self,

       You are frightened with joy, my heart, like a frightened mouse."

       Three times have I offered myself, three times rejected.

       It will not be any more. No more, my son, my son!

       Never to know the glad freedom of obedience, since long ago

       The angel of childhood kissed me and went. I expected

       Another would take me,—and now, my son, O my son,

       I must sit awhile and wait, and never know

       The loss of myself, till death comes, who cannot fail.

       Death, in whose service is nothing of gladness, takes me;

       For the lips and the eyes of God are behind a veil.

       And the thought of the lipless voice of the Father shakes me

       With fear, and fills my eyes with the tears of desire,

       And my heart rebels with anguish as night draws nigher,

      In a Boat

       Table of Contents

      See the stars, love,

       In the water much clearer and brighter

       Than those above us, and whiter,

       Like nenuphars.

       Star-shadows shine, love,

       How many stars in your bowl?

       How many shadows in your soul,

       Only mine, love, mine?

       When I move the oars, love,

       See how the stars are tossed,

       Distorted, the brightest lost.

       —So that bright one of yours, love.

       The poor waters spill

       The stars, waters broken, forsaken.

Скачать книгу