D. H. Lawrence Poems

A collection of select D. H. Lawrence famous poems that were written by D. H. Lawrence or written about the poet by other famous poets. PoetrySoup is a comprehensive educational resource of the greatest poems and poets on history.

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Giorno dei Morti

by D. H. Lawrence
 Along the avenue of cypresses, 
All in their scarlet cloaks and surplices 
Of linen, go the chanting choristers, 
The priests in gold and black, the villagers. . . 

And all along the path to the cemetery 
The round dark heads of men crowd silently, 
And black-scarved faces of womenfolk, wistfully 
Watch at the banner of death, and the mystery....Read more of this...

Dove Sta Amore

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 Dove sta amore
Where lies love
Dove sta amore
Here lies love
The ring dove love
In lyrical delight
Hear love's hillsong
Love's true willsong
Love's low plainsong
Too sweet painsong
In passages of night
Dove sta amore
Here lies love
The ring dove love
Dove sta amore
Here lies love...Read more of this...

The Revolutionary

by D. H. Lawrence
 Look at them standing there in authority 
The pale-faces, 
As if it could have any effect any more. 

Pale-face authority,
Caryatids, 
Pillars of white bronze standing rigid, lest the skies fall. 

What a job they've got to keep it up. 
Their poor, idealist foreheads naked capitals 
To the entablature of clouded heaven. 

When the skies are going to fall, fall...Read more of this...

Epilogue

by D. H. Lawrence
 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...Read more of this...

The Punisher

by D. H. Lawrence
 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.

....Read more of this...

Michael-Angelo

by D. H. Lawrence
God shook thy roundness in His finger's cup,
He sunk His hands in firmness down thy sides,
And drew the circle of His grasp, O Man,
Along thy limbs delighted, thine, His bride's.

And so thou wert God-shapen: His finger
Curved thy mouth for thee, and His strong shoulder
Planted thee upright: art not proud to see
In the curve of thine exquisite form the joy of...Read more of this...

If You are a Man

by D. H. Lawrence
 If you are a man, and believe in the destiny of mankind
then say to yourself: we will cease to care
about property and money and mechanical devices,
and open our consciousness to the deep, mysterious life
that we are now cut off from.

The machine shall be abolished from the earth again;
it is a mistake that mankind has made;
money shall cease to be,...Read more of this...

Craving for Spring

by D. H. Lawrence
 I wish it were spring in the world.

Let it be spring!
Come, bubbling, surging tide of sap!
Come, rush of creation!
Come, life! surge through this mass of mortification!
Come, sweep away these exquisite, ghastly first-flowers,
which are rather last-flowers!
Come, thaw down their cool portentousness, dissolve them:
snowdrops, straight, death-veined exhalations of white and purple crocuses,
flowers of the penumbra, issue of corruption, nourished in mortification,
jets...Read more of this...

Transformations

by D. H. Lawrence
I

=The Town=

Oh you stiff shapes, swift transformation seethes
About you: only last night you were
A Sodom smouldering in the dense, soiled air;
To-day a thicket of sunshine with blue smoke-wreaths.

To-morrow swimming in evening's vague, dim vapour
Like a weeded city in shadow under the sea,
Beneath an ocean of shimmering light you will be:
Then a group of toadstools waiting the moon's white taper.

And when...Read more of this...

Bat

by D. H. Lawrence
 At evening, sitting on this terrace, 
When the sun from the west, beyond Pisa, beyond the mountains of Carrara 
Departs, and the world is taken by surprise ... 

When the tired flower of Florence is in gloom beneath the glowing 
Brown hills surrounding ... 

When under the arches of the Ponte Vecchio 
A green light enters against stream, flush...Read more of this...

Cruelty and Love

by D. H. Lawrence
 What large, dark hands are those at the window 
Lifted, grasping in the yellow light 
Which makes its way through the curtain web 
At my heart to-night? 

Ah, only the leaves! So leave me at rest, 
In the west I see a redness come 
Over the evening's burning breast -- 
For now the pain is numb. 

The woodbine creeps...Read more of this...

Monologue of a Mother

by D. H. Lawrence
 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...Read more of this...

Intimates

by D. H. Lawrence
 Don't you care for my love? she said bitterly.

I handed her the mirror, and said:
Please address these questions to the proper person!
Please make all requests to head-quarters!
In all matters of emotional importance
please approach the supreme authority direct! - 

So I handed her the mirror.
And she would have broken it over my head,
but she caught sight of her own reflection
and...Read more of this...

Cruelty and Love

by D. H. Lawrence
What large, dark hands are those at the window
Lifted, grasping the golden light
Which weaves its way through the creeper leaves
          To my heart's delight?

Ah, only the leaves! But in the west,
In the west I see a redness come
Over the evening's burning breast--
         ...Read more of this...

Coldness in Love

by D. H. Lawrence
And you remember, in the afternoon
The sea and the sky went grey, as if there had sunk
A flocculent dust on the floor of the world: the festoon
Of the sky sagged dusty as spider cloth,
And coldness clogged the sea, till it ceased to croon.

A dank, sickening scent came up from the grime
Of weed that blackened the shore, so that I recoiled
Feeling...Read more of this...

Casey At The Bat

by Ernest Lawrence Thayer
The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Mudville nine that day, 
The score stood four to two, with but one inning more to play. 

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same, 
A pall-like silence fell upon the patrons of the game. 

A straggling few got up to go in deep despair. 
The rest clung to that...Read more of this...

Lillies in the Fire

by D. H. Lawrence
I

Ah, you stack of white lilies, all white and gold,
I am adrift as a sunbeam, and without form
Or having, save I light on you to warm
Your pallor into radiance, flush your cold

White beauty into incandescence: you
Are not a stack of white lilies to-night, but a white
And clustered star transfigured by me to-night,
And lighting these ruddy leaves like a star dropped...Read more of this...

To Mr. Lawrence

by John Milton
 Lawrence, of virtuous father virtuous son, 
Now that the fields are dank, and ways are mire, 
Where shall we sometimes meet, and by the fire 
Help waste a sullen day, what may be won 
From the hard season gaining? Time will run
On smoother, till Favonius reinspire 
The frozen earth, and clothe in fresh attire 
The lily and rose, that...Read more of this...

Snap-Dragon

by D. H. Lawrence
 She bade me follow to her garden where 
The mellow sunlight stood as in a cup 
Between the old grey walls; I did not dare 
To raise my face, I did not dare look up 
Lest her bright eyes like sparrows should fly in 
My windows of discovery and shrill 'Sin!' 

So with a downcast mien and laughing voice...Read more of this...

Silence

by D. H. Lawrence
 Since I lost you I am silence-haunted,
Sounds wave their little wings 
A moment, then in weariness settle
On the flood that soundless swings.

Whether the people in the street
Like pattering ripples go by, 
Or whether the theatre sighs and sighs
With a loud, hoarse sigh: 

Or the wind shakes a ravel of light
Over the dead-black river,
Or night’s last echoing 
Makes the daybreak...Read more of this...

The Enkindled Spring

by D. H. Lawrence
 This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green, 
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes, 
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between 
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in...Read more of this...

Whether or Not

by D. H. Lawrence
I

Dunna thee tell me its his'n, mother,
      Dunna thee, dunna thee.
--Oh ay! he'll be comin' to tell thee his-sèn
      Wench, wunna he?

Tha doesna mean to say to me, mother,
      He's gone wi that--
--My gel, owt'll do for a man i' the dark,
   ...Read more of this...

The Prophet

by D. H. Lawrence
 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....Read more of this...

Last Words to Miriam

by D. H. Lawrence
 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...Read more of this...

Bei Hennef

by D. H. Lawrence
The little river twittering in the twilight,
The wan, wondering look of the pale sky,
    This is almost bliss.

And everything shut up and gone to sleep,
All the troubles and anxieties and pain
    Gone under the twilight.

Only the twilight now, and the soft "Sh!" of the river
    That will last for ever.

And at...Read more of this...

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