Read Amores Page 2 by D. H. Lawrence online for free (2025)

Shaper,

The power of the melting, fusing Force--heat,

light, all in one,

Everything great and mysterious in one, swelling and

shaping the dream in the flesh,

As it swells and shapes a bud into blossom.

Oh the terrible ecstasy of the consciousness that I

am life!

Oh the miracle of the whole, the widespread, labouring

concentration

Swelling mankind like one bud to bring forth the

fruit of a dream,

Oh the terror of lifting the innermost I out of the

sweep of the impulse of life,

And watching the great Thing labouring through the

whole round flesh of the world;

And striving to catch a glimpse of the shape of the

coming dream,

As it quickens within the labouring, white-hot metal,

Catch the scent and the colour of the coming dream,

Then to fall back exhausted into the unconscious,

molten life!

A WINTER'S TALE

YESTERDAY the fields were only grey with scattered

snow,

And now the longest grass-leaves hardly emerge;

Yet her deep footsteps mark the snow, and go

On towards the pines at the hills' white verge.

I cannot see her, since the mist's white scarf

Obscures the dark wood and the dull orange sky;

But she's waiting, I know, impatient and cold, half

Sobs struggling into her frosty sigh.

Why does she come so promptly, when she must

know

That she's only the nearer to the inevitable farewell;

The hill is steep, on the snow my steps are slow--

Why does she come, when she knows what I have to

tell?

EPILOGUE

PATIENCE, little Heart.

One day a heavy, June-hot woman

Will enter and shut the door to stay.

And when your stifling heart would summon

Cool, lonely night, her roused breasts will keep the

night at bay,

Sitting in your room like two tiger-lilies

Flaming on after sunset,

Destroying the cool, lonely night with the glow of

their hot twilight;

There in the morning, still, while the fierce strange

scent comes yet

Stronger, hot and red; till you thirst for the

daffodillies

With an anguished, husky thirst that you cannot

assuage,

When the daffodillies are dead, and a woman of the

dog-days holds you in gage.

Patience, little Heart.

A BABY RUNNING BAREFOOT

WHEN the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass

The little white feet nod like white flowers in the

wind,

They poise and run like ripples lapping across the

water;

And the sight of their white play among the grass

Is like a little robin's song, winsome,

Or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one

flower

For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings.

I long for the baby to wander hither to me

Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water,

So that she can stand on my knee

With her little bare feet in my hands,

Cool like syringa buds,

Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.

DISCIPLINE

IT is stormy, and raindrops cling like silver bees to

the pane,

The thin sycamores in the playground are swinging

with flattened leaves;

The heads of the boys move dimly through a yellow

gloom that stains

The class; over them all the dark net of my discipline

weaves.

It is no good, dear, gentleness and forbearance, I

endured too long.

I have pushed my hands in the dark soil, under the

flower of my soul

And the gentle leaves, and have felt where the roots

are strong

Fixed in the darkness, grappling for the deep soil's

little control.

And there is the dark, my darling, where the roots

are entangled and fight

Each one for its hold on the oblivious darkness, I

know that there

In the night where we first have being, before we rise

on the light,

We are not brothers, my darling, we fight and we

do not spare.

And in the original dark the roots cannot keep,

cannot know

Any communion whatever, but they bind themselves

on to the dark,

And drawing the darkness together, crush from it a

twilight, a slow

Burning that breaks at last into leaves and a flower's

bright spark.

I came to the boys with love, my dear, but they

turned on me;

I came with gentleness, with my heart 'twixt my

hands like a bowl,

Like a loving-cup, like a grail, but they spilt it

triumphantly

And tried to break the vessel, and to violate my

soul.

But what have I to do with the boys, deep down in

my soul, my love?

I throw from out of the darkness my self like a flower

into sight,

Like a flower from out of the night-time, I lift my

face, and those

Who will may warm their hands at me, comfort this

night.

But whosoever would pluck apart my flowering shall

burn their hands,

So flowers are tender folk, and roots can only hide,

Yet my flowerings of love are a fire, and the scarlet

brands

Of my love are roses to look at, but flames to chide.

But comfort me, my love, now the fires are low,

Now I am broken to earth like a winter destroyed,

and all

Myself but a knowledge of roots, of roots in the dark

that throw

A net on the undersoil, which lies passive beneath

their thrall.

But comfort me, for henceforth my love is yours

alone,

To you alone will I offer the bowl, to you will I give

My essence only, but love me, and I will atone

To you for my general loving, atone as long as I live.

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 class-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 cheeks and your brow and your

chin as you dipped

Your face in the marigold bunch, to touch and contrast

you,

Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks,

Dissolved on the golden sorcery you should not

outlast.

You amid the bog-end's yellow incantation,

You sitting in the cowslips of the meadow above
,

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

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 of a

dove.

You are always asking, do I remember, remember

The butter-cup bog-end where the flowers rose up

And kindled you over deep with a cast of gold?

You ask again, do the healing days close up

The open darkness which then drew us in,

The dark which then drank up our brimming cup.

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 we fainted like a smoke or dew.

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

The fire of night is gone, and your face is ash

Indistinguishable on the grey, chill day;

The night has burnt us out, at last the good

Dark fire burns on untroubled, without clash

Of you upon the dead leaves saying me Yea.

THE PROPHET

AH, my darling, when over the purple horizon shall

loom

The shrouded mother of a new idea, men hide their

faces,

Cry out and fend her off, as she seeks her procreant

groom,

Wounding themselves against her, denying her

fecund embraces.

LAST WORDS TO MIRIAM

YOURS is the shame and sorrow

But the disgrace is mine;

Your love was dark and thorough,

Mine was the love of the sun for a flower

He creates with his shine.

I was diligent to explore you,

Blossom you stalk by stalk,

Till my fire of creation bore you

Shrivelling down in the final dour

Anguish--then I suffered a balk.

I knew your pain, and it broke

My fine, craftsman's nerve;

Your body quailed at my stroke,

And my courage failed to give you the last

Fine torture you did deserve.

You are shapely, you are adorned,

But opaque and dull in the flesh,

Who, had I but pierced with the thorned

Fire-threshing anguish, were fused and cast

In a lovely illumined mesh.

Like a painted window: the best

Suffering burnt through your flesh,

Undrossed it and left it blest

With a quivering sweet wisdom of grace: but

now

Who shall take you afresh?

Now who will burn you free

From your body's terrors and dross,

Since the fire has failed in me?

What man will stoop in your flesh to plough

The shrieking cross?

A mute, nearly beautiful thing

Is your face, that fills me with shame

As I see it hardening,

Warping the perfect image of God,

And darkening my eternal fame.

MYSTERY

Now I am all

One bowl of kisses,

Such as the tall

Slim votaresses

Of Egypt filled

For a God's excesses.

I lift to you

My bowl of kisses,

And through the temple's

Blue recesses

Cry out to you

In wild caresses.

And to my lips'

Bright crimson rim

The passion slips,

And down my slim

White body drips

The shining hymn.

And still before

The altar I

Exult the bowl

Brimful, and cry

To you to stoop

And drink, Most High.

Oh drink me up

That I may be

Within your cup

Like a mystery,

Like wine that is still

In ecstasy.

Glimmering still

In ecstasy,

Commingled wines

Of you and me

In one fulfil

The mystery.

PATIENCE

A WIND comes from the north

Blowing little flocks of birds

Like spray across the town,

And a train, roaring forth,

Rushes stampeding down

With cries and flying curds

Of steam, out of the darkening north.

Whither I turn and set

Like a needle steadfastly,

Waiting ever to get

The news that she is free;

But ever fixed, as yet,

To the lode of her agony.

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 stack-yard,

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 the 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 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!

RESTLESSNESS

AT the open door of the room I stand and look at

the night,

Hold my hand to catch the raindrops, that slant into

sight,

Arriving grey from the darkness above suddenly into

the light of the room.

I will escape from the hollow room, the box of light,

And be out in the bewildering darkness, which is

always fecund, which might

Mate my hungry soul with a germ of its womb.

I will go out to the night, as a man goes down to the

shore

To draw his net through the surfs thin line, at the

dawn before

The sun warms the sea, little, lonely and sad, sifting

the sobbing tide.

I will sift
the surf that edges the night, with my net,

the four

Strands of my eyes and my lips and my hands and my

feet, sifting the store

Of flotsam until my soul is tired or satisfied.

I will catch in my eyes' quick net

The faces of all the women as they go past,

Bend over them with my soul, to cherish the wet

Cheeks and wet hair a moment, saying: "Is it

you?"

Looking earnestly under the dark umbrellas, held

fast

Against the wind; and if, where the lamplight

blew

Its rainy swill about us, she answered me

With a laugh and a merry wildness that it was she

Who was seeking me, and had found me at last to

free

Me now from the stunting bonds of my chastity,

How glad I should be!

Moving along in the mysterious ebb of the night

Pass the men whose eyes are shut like anemones in a

dark pool;

Why don't they open with vision and speak to me,

what have they in sight?

Why do I wander aimless among them, desirous

fool?

I can always linger over the huddled books on the

stalls,

Always gladden my amorous fingers with the touch

of their leaves,

Always kneel in courtship to the shelves in the

doorways, where falls

The shadow, always offer myself to one mistress,

who always receives.

But oh, it is not enough, it is all no good.

There is something I want to feel in my running

blood,

Something I want to touch; I must hold my face to

the rain,

I must hold my face to the wind, and let it explain

Me its life as it hurries in secret.

I will trail my hands again through the drenched,

cold leaves

Till my hands are full of the chillness and touch of

leaves,

Till at length they induce me to sleep, and to forget.

A BABY ASLEEP AFTER PAIN

As a drenched, drowned bee

Hangs numb and heavy from a bending flower,

So clings to me

My baby, her brown hair brushed with wet tears

And laid against her cheek;

Her soft white legs hanging heavily over my arm

Swinging heavily to my movement as I walk.

My sleeping baby hangs upon my life,

Like a burden she hangs on me.

She has always seemed so light,

But now she is wet with tears and numb with pain

Even her floating hair sinks heavily,

Reaching downwards;

As the wings of a drenched, drowned bee

Are a heaviness, and a weariness.

ANXIETY

THE hoar-frost crumbles in the sun,

The crisping steam of a train

Melts in the air, while two black birds

Sweep past the window again.

Along the vacant road, a red

Bicycle approaches; I wait

In a thaw of anxiety, for the boy

To leap down at our gate.

He has passed us by; but is it

Relief that starts in my breast?

Or a deeper bruise of knowing that still

She has no rest.

THE PUNISHER

I HAVE fetched the tears up out of the little wells,

Scooped them up with small, iron words,

Dripping over the runnels.

The harsh, cold wind of my words drove on, and still

I watched the tears on the guilty cheek of the boys

Glitter and spill.

Cringing Pity, and Love, white-handed, came

Hovering about the Judgment which stood in my

eyes,

Whirling a flame.

. . . . . . .

The tears are dry, and the cheeks' young fruits are

fresh

With laughter, and clear the exonerated eyes, since

pain

Beat through the flesh.

The Angel of Judgment has departed again to the

Nearness.

Desolate I am as a church whose lights are put out.

And night enters in drearness.

The fire rose up in the bush and blazed apace,

The thorn-leaves crackled and twisted and sweated in

anguish;

Then God left the place.

Like a flower that the frost has hugged and let go,

my head

Is heavy, and my heart beats slowly, laboriously,

My strength is shed.

THE END

IF I could have put you in my heart,

If but I could have wrapped you in myself,

How glad I should have been!

And now the chart

Of memory unrolls again to me

The course of our journey here, before we had to

part.

And oh, that you had never, never been

Some of your selves, my love, that some

Of your several faces I had never seen!

And still they come before me, and they go,

And I cry aloud in the moments that intervene.

And oh, my love, as I rock for you to-night,

And have not any longer any hope

To heal the suffering, or make requite

For all your life of asking and despair,

I own that some of me is dead to-night.

THE BRIDE

MY love looks like a girl to-night,

Read Amores Page 2 by D. H. Lawrence online for free (2025)
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