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D. H. Lawrence Short Poems

Famous Short D. H. Lawrence Poems. Short poetry by famous poet D. H. Lawrence. A collection of the all-time best D. H. Lawrence short poems


by D. H. Lawrence
 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.



by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 One grand boulevard with trees
with one grand cafe in sun
with strong black coffee in very small cups.

One not necessarily very beautiful
man or woman who loves you.

One fine day.

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 It was a face which darkness could kill
     in an instant
a face as easily hurt
   by laughter or light

 'We think differently at night'
     she told me once
lying back languidly

   And she would quote Cocteau

'I feel there is an angel in me' she'd say
    'whom I am constantly shocking'

 Then she would smile and look away 
 light a cigarette for me
    sigh and rise

and stretch
 her sweet anatomy

   let fall a stocking

by D. H. Lawrence
 Outside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,
And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree 
Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship’s 
Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously. 

Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender lash
Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound 
Of a thick lash booming and bruising, until it drowned 
The other voice in a silence of blood, ’neath the noise of the ash.

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where I first
  fell in love
    with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
    the licorice sticks
  and tootsie rolls
 and Oh Boy Gum

Outside the leaves were falling as they died

A wind had blown away the sun

A girl ran in 
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room

Outside the leaves were falling
   and they cried
     Too soon! too soon!



by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
 The pennycandystore beyond the El
is where i first 
 fell in love
 with unreality
Jellybeans glowed in the semi-gloom
of that september afternoon
A cat upon the counter moved among
 the licorice sticks
 and tootsie rolls
 and Oh Boy Gum

Outside the leaves were falling as they died

A wind had blown away the sun

A girl ran in
Her hair was rainy
Her breasts were breathless in the little room

Outside the leaves were falling
 and they cried
 Too soon! too soon!

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

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 that held her spellbound for two seconds
while I fled.

Green  Create an image from this poem
by D. H. Lawrence
 The dawn was apple-green,
The sky was green wine held up in the sun,
The moon was a golden petal between.

She opened her eyes, and green
They shone, clear like flowers undone,
For the first time, now for the first time seen.

by D. H. Lawrence
 The profoundest of all sensualities
is the sense of truth
and the next deepest sensual experience
is the sense of justice.

by D. H. Lawrence
 The youth walks up to the white horse, to put its halter on
and the horse looks at him in silence.
They are so silent, they are in another world.

by D. H. Lawrence
 I look at the swaling sunset 
And wish I could go also 
Through the red doors beyond the black-purple bar.

I wish that I could go 
Through the red doors where I could put off
My shame like shoes in the porch, 
My pain like garments, 
And leave my flesh discarded lying 
Like luggage of some departed traveller
Gone one knows not where.

Then I would turn round, 
And seeing my cast-off body lying like lumber,
I would laugh with joy.

by D. H. Lawrence
 Many years have I still to burn, detained
Like a candle flame on this body; but I enshine 
A darkness within me, a presence which sleeps contained
In my flame of living, her soul enfolded in mine. 

And through these years, while I burn on the fuel of life,
What matter the stuff I lick up in my living flame, 
Seeing I keep in the fire-core, inviolate, 
A night where she dreams my dreams for me, ever the same.

Dreams  Create an image from this poem
by D. H. Lawrence
 All people dream, but not equally.
Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their mind,
Wake in the morning to find that it was vanity.

But the dreamers of the day are dangerous people,
For they dream their dreams with open eyes,
And make them come true.

by D. H. Lawrence
 When along the pavement,
Palpitating flames of life, 
People flicker round me, 
I forget my bereavement, 
The gap in the great constellation,
The place where a star used to be.

Nay, though the pole-star 
Is blown out like a candle, 
And all the heavens are wandering in disarray,
Yet when pleiads of people are
Deployed around me, and I see 
The street’s long outstretched Milky Way,

When people flicker down the pavement,
I forget my bereavement.

by D. H. Lawrence
 Tell me a word
that you've often heard,
yet it makes you squint
when you see it in print!

Tell me a thing
that you've often seen
yet if put in a book
it makes you turn green!

Tell me a thing
that you often do,
when described in a story
shocks you through and through!

Tell me what's wrong
with words or with you
that you don't mind the thing
yet the name is taboo.

by D. H. Lawrence
 People were bathing and posturing themselves on the beach, 
and all was dreary, great robot limbs, robot breasts, 
robot voices, robot even the gay umbrellas.

But a woman, shy and alone, was washing herself under a tap and the glimmer of the presence of the gods was like
lilies, and like water-lilies.

by D. H. Lawrence
 A yellow leaf from the darkness 
Hops like a frog before me. 
Why should I start and stand still? 

I was watching the woman that bore me 
Stretched in the brindled darkness
Of the sick-room, rigid with will 
To die: and the quick leaf tore me 
Back to this rainy swill 
Of leaves and lamps and traffic mingled before me.

by D. H. Lawrence
 When the wind blows her veil
And uncovers her laughter
I cease, I turn pale.
When the wind blows her veil
From the woes I bewail
Of love and hereafter:
When the wind blows her veil
I cease, I turn pale.

by D. H. Lawrence
High and smaller goes the moon, she is small and very far from me,
Wistful and candid, watching me wistfully, and I see
Trembling blue in her pallor a tear that surely I have seen before,
A tear which I had hoped that even hell held not again in store.

by D. H. Lawrence
 I never saw a wild thing 
sorry for itself. 
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.

by D. H. Lawrence
 I can’t stand Willy Wet-Leg, 
Can’t stand him at any price. 
He’s resigned, and when you hit him 
he lets you hit him twice.

by D. H. Lawrence
 We are a liars, because
the truth of yesterday becomes a lie tomorrow,
whereas letters are fixed,
and we live by the letter of truth.
The love I feel for my friend, this year,
is different from the love I felt last year.
If it were not so, it would be a lie.
Yet we reiterate love! love! love!
as if it were a coin with a fixed value
instead of a flower that dies, and opens a different bud.

Belief  Create an image from this poem
by D. H. Lawrence
 Forever nameless
Forever unknwon
Forever unconceived
Forever unrepresented
yet forever felt in the soul.

Sorrow  Create an image from this poem
by D. H. Lawrence
 Why does the thin grey strand 
Floating up from the forgotten 
Cigarette between my fingers, 
Why does it trouble me? 

Ah, you will understand;
When I carried my mother downstairs,
A few times only, at the beginning 
Of her soft-foot malady, 

I should find, for a reprimand
To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
On the breast of my coat; and one by one
I let them float up the dark chimney.


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