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Overview
These selections originally appeared in Love Poems and Others (1913), Amores (1916), Look! We Have Come Through! (1917), Tortoises (1921), and such periodicals as The Dial and English Review. In addition to the celebrated title poem, individual works include "A Collier's Wife," "Monologue of a Mother," "Quite Forsaken," "Wedlock," "Fireflies in the Corn," "New Heaven and Earth," and many others.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780486812847 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Dover Publications |
| Publication date: | 05/18/2016 |
| Series: | Dover Thrift Editions: Poetry |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 64 |
| Sales rank: | 818,802 |
| File size: | 732 KB |
| Age Range: | 14 - 18 Years |
About the Author
Date of Birth:
September 11, 1885Date of Death:
March 2, 1930Place of Birth:
Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, EnglandPlace of Death:
Vence, FranceEducation:
Nottingham University College, teacher training certificate, 1908Read an Excerpt
Snake and Other Poems
By D. H. LAWRENCE, Bob Blaisdell
Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1999 Dover Publications, Inc.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-81284-7
CHAPTER 1
Bei Hennef
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 last I know my love for you is here,
I can see it all, it is whole like the twilight,
It is large, so large, I could not see it before
Because of the little lights and flickers and interruptions,
Troubles, anxieties and pains.
You are the call and I am the answer,
You are the wish, and I the fulfilment,
You are the night, and I the day.
What else — it is perfect enough,
It is perfectly complete,
You and I,
What more —?
Strange, how we suffer in spite of this!
A Collier's Wife
Somebody's knocking at the door
Mother, come down and see.
— I's think it's nobbut a beggar,
Say, I'm busy.
It's not a beggar, mother, — hark
How hard he knocks ...
— Eh, tha'rt a mard-'arsed kid, '
'E'll gi'e thee socks!
Shout an' ax what 'e wants,
I canna come down.
—'E says "Is it Arthur Holliday's?"
Say "Yes," tha clown.
'E says, "Tell your mother as 'er mester's
Got hurt i' th' pit."
What — oh my sirs, 'e never says that,
That's niver it.
Come out o' the way an' let me see,
Eh, there's no peace!
An' stop thy scraightin', childt,
Do shut thy face.
"Your mester's 'ad an accident,
An' they're ta'ein 'im i' th' ambulance
To Nottingham,"— Eh dear o' me
If 'e's not a man for mischance!
Wheers he hurt this time, lad?
— I dunna know,
They on'y towd me it wor bad —
It would be so!
Eh, what a man! — an' that cobbly road,
They'll jolt him a'most to death,
I'm sure he's in for some trouble
Nigh every time he takes breath.
Out o' my way, childt — dear o' me, wheer
Have I put his clean stockings and shirt;
Goodness knows if they'll be able
To take off his pit dirt.
An' what a moan hell make — there niver
Was such a man for a fuss
If anything ailed him — at any rate
I shan't have him to nuss.
I do hope it's not very bad!
Eh, what a shame it seems
As some should ha'e hardly a smite o' trouble
An' others has reams.
It's a shame as 'e should be knocked about
Like this, I'm sure it is!
He's had twenty accidents, if he's had one;
Owt bad, an' it's his.
There's one thing, we '11 have peace for a bit,
Thank Heaven for a peaceful house;
An' there's compensation, sin' it's accident,
An' club money — I nedn't grouse.
An' a fork an' a spoon he'll want, an' what else;
I s'll never catch that train —
What a trapse it is if a man gets hurt —
I s'd think he'll get right again.
The Schoolmaster
I
A Snowy Day in School
All the slow school hours, round the irregular hum of the class,
Have pressed immeasurable spaces of hoarse silence
Muffling my mind, as snow muffles the sounds that pass
Down the soiled street. We have pattered the lessons ceaselessly —
But the faces of the boys, in the brooding, yellow light
Have shone for me like a crowded constellation of stars,
Like full-blown flowers dimly shaking at the night,
Like floating froth on an ebbing shore in the moon.
Out of each star, dark, strange beams that disquiet:
In the open depths of each flower, dark restless drops:
Twin bubbles, shadow-full of mystery and challenge in the
foam's whispering riot:
— How can I answer the challenge of so many eyes? — A voice
The thick snow is crumpled on the roof, it plunges down
Awfully. Must I call back those hundred eyes — A voice
Wakes from the hum, faltering about a noun —
My question! My God, I must break from this hoarse silence
That rustles beyond the stars to me. — There,
I have startled a hundred eyes, and I must look
Them an answer back. It is more than I can bear.
The snow descends as if the dull sky shook
In flakes of shadow down; and through the gap
Between the ruddy schools sweeps one black rook.
The rough snowball in the playground stands huge and still
With fair flakes settling down on it. — Beyond, the town
Is lost in the shadowed silence the skies distil.
And all things are possessed by silence, and they can brood
Wrapped up in the sky's dim space of hoarse silence
Earnestly — and oh for me this class is a bitter rood.
II
The Best of School
The blinds are drawn because of the sun,
And the boys and the room in a colourless gloom
Of under-water float: bright ripples run
Across the walls as the blinds are blown
To let the sunlight in; and I,
As I sit on the beach of the class alone,
Watch the boys in their summer blouses,
As they write, their round heads busily bowed:
And one after another rouses
And lifts his face and looks at me,
And my eyes meet his very quietly,
Then he turns again to his work, with glee.
With glee he turns, with a little glad
Ecstasy of work he turns from me,
An ecstasy surely sweet to be had.
And very sweet while the sunlight waves
In the fresh of the morning, it is to be
A teacher of these young boys, my slaves
Only as swallows are slaves to the eaves
They build upon, as mice are slaves
To the man who threshes and sows the sheaves.
Oh, sweet it is
To feel the lads' looks light on me,
Then back in a swift, bright flutter to work,
As birds who are stealing turn and flee.
Touch after touch I feel on me
As their eyes glance at me for the grain
Of rigour they taste delightedly.
And all the class,
As tendrils reached out yearningly
Slowly rotate till they touch the tree
That they cleave unto, that they leap along
Up to their lives — so they to me.
So do they cleave and cling to me,
So I lead them up, so do they twine
Me up, caress and clothe with free
Fine foliage of lives this life of mine;
The lowest stem of this life of mine,
The old hard stem of my life
That bears aloft towards rarer skies
My top of life, that buds on high
Amid the high wind's enterprise.
They all do clothe my ungrowing life
With a rich, a thrilled young clasp of life;
A clutch of attachment, like parenthood,
Mounts up to my heart, and I find it good.
And I lift my head upon the troubled tangled world, and though the pain
Of living my life were doubled, I still have this to comfort and sustain,
I have such swarming sense of lives at the base of me, such sense of lives,
Clustering upon me, reaching up, as each after the other strives
To follow my life aloft to the fine wild air of life and the storm of thought,
And though I scarcely see the boys, or know that they are there, distraught
As I am with living my life in earnestness, still progressively and alone,
Though they cling, forgotten the most part, not companions, scarcely known
To me — yet still because of the sense of their closeness clinging densely to me,
And slowly fingering up my stem and following all tinily
The way that I have gone and now am leading, they are dear to me.
They keep me assured, and when my soul feels lonely,
All mistrustful of thrusting its shoots where only
I alone am living, then it keeps
Me comforted to feel the warmth that creeps
Up dimly from their striving; it heartens my strife:
And when my heart is chill with loneliness,
Then comforts it the creeping tenderness
Of all the strays of life that climb my life.
III
Afternoon in School
The Last Lesson
When will the bell ring, and end this weariness?
How long have they tugged the leash, and strained apart
My pack of unruly hounds: I cannot start
Them again on a quarry of knowledge they hate to hunt,
I can haul them and urge them no more.
No more can I endure to bear the brunt
Of the books that lie out on the desks: a full three score
Of several insults of blotted pages and scrawl
Of slovenly work that they have offered me.
I am sick, and tired more than any thrall
Upon the woodstacks working weariedly.
And shall I take
The last dear fuel and heap it on my soul
Till I rouse my will like a fire to consume
Their dross of indifference, and burn the scroll
Of their insults in punishment? — I will not!
I will not waste myself to embers for them,
Not all for them shall the fires of my life be hot.
For myself a heap of ashes of weariness, till sleep
Shall have raked the embers clear: I will keep
Some of my strength for myself, for if I should sell
It all for them, I should hate them —
— I will sit and wait for the bell.
Cruelty and Love
What large, dark hands are those at the window
Grasping in the golden light
Which weaves its way through the evening wind
At my heart's delight?
Ah, only the leaves! But in the west
I see a redness suddenly come
Into the evening's anxious breast —
'Tis the wound of love goes home!
The woodbine creeps abroad
Calling low to her lover:
The sunlight flirt who all the day
Has poised above her lips in play
And stolen kisses, shallow and gay
Of pollen, now has gone away —
She woos the moth with her sweet, low word;
And when above her his moth-wings hover
Then her bright breast she will uncover
And yield her honey-drop to her lover.
Into the yellow, evening glow
Saunters a man from the farm below;
Leans, and looks in at the low-built shed
Where the swallow has hung her marriage bed.
The bird lies warm against the wall.
She glances quick her startled eyes
Towards him, then she turns away
Her small head, making warm display
Of red upon the throat. Her terrors sway
Her out of the nest's warm, busy ball,
Whose plaintive cry is heard as she flies
In one blue stoop from out the sties
Into the twilight's empty hall.
Oh, water-hen, beside the rushes
Hide your quaintly scarlet blushes,
Still your quick tail, lie still as dead,
Till the distance folds over his ominous tread!
The rabbit presses back her ears,
Turns back her liquid, anguished eyes
And crouches low; then with wild spring
Spurts from the tenor of his oncoming;
To be choked back, the wire ring
Her frantic effort throttling:
Piteous brown ball of quivering fears!
Ah, soon in his large, hard hands she dies,
And swings all loose from the swing of his walk!
Yet calm and kindly are his eyes
And ready to open in brown surprise
Should I not answer to his talk
Or should he my tears surmise.
I hear his hand on the latch, and rise from my chair
Watching the door open; he flashes bare
His strong teeth in a smile, and flashes his eyes
In a smile like triumph upon me; then careless-wise
He flings the rabbit soft on the table board
And comes towards me: ah! the uplifted sword
Of his hand against my bosom! and oh, the broad
Blade of his glance that asks me to applaud
His coming! With his hand he turns my face to him
And caresses me with his fingers that still smell grim
Of the rabbit's fur! God, I am caught in a snare!
I know not what fine wire is round my throat;
I only know I let him finger there
My pulse of life, and let him nose like a stoat
Who sniffs with joy before he drinks the blood.
And down his mouth comes to my mouth! and down
His bright dark eyes come over me, like a hood
Upon my mind! his lips meet mine, and a flood
Of sweet fire sweeps across me, so I drown
Against him, die, and find death good.
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.
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.
Monologue of a Mother
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 the 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.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Snake and Other Poems by D. H. LAWRENCE, Bob Blaisdell. Copyright © 1999 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
From Love Poems and Others (1913):Bei Hennef
A Collier's Wife
The Schoolmaster:
I. A Snowy Day in School
II. The Best of School
III. Afternoon in School: The Last Lesson
Cruelty and Love
From Amores (1916):
A Baby Running Barefoot
A Baby Asleep After Pain
Monologue of a Mother
The Wild Common
From Look! We Have Come Through! (1917):
"And Oh-That the Man I Am Might Cease to Be-"
She Looks Back
Frohnleichnam
In the Dark
Gloire de Dijon
A Youth Mowing
Quite Forsaken
Fireflies in the Corn
A Doe at Evening
Both Sides of the Medal
Spring Morning
Wedlock
"She Said as Well to Me"
New Heaven and Earth
From Tortoises (1921):
Baby Tortoise
Tortoise-Shell
Tortoise Family Connections
Lui et Elle
Tortoise Galllantry
Tortoise Shout
From Periodicals:
Snake (from The Dial, July 1921)
Fish (from English Review, June 1922)
Bat (from English Review, November 1922)
The Mosquito (from The Bookman, July 1921)
Humming-Bird (from The New Republic, May 11, 1921)
Pomegranate (from English Review, August 1921)
Medlars and Sorb-Apples (from English Review, August 1921)