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  Title: Bay

  A Book of Poems

  Author: D. H. Lawrence

  Release Date: September 23, 2007 [EBook #22734]

  Language: English

  Character set encoding: ASCII

  *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BAY ***

  Produced by Lewis Jones

  D.H. Lawrence (1919) _Bay: A Book of Poems_

  Transcriber's Note: These poems were first published

  by the Beaumont Press in a limited edition. Facsimile

  page images from the original publication, including

  facsimile images of the original coloured illustrations

  by Anne Estelle Rice, are freely available from the

  Internet Archive.

  BAY . . A BOOK

  OF . . POEMS . . BY

  D: H: LAWRENCE

  To Cynthia Asquith

  CONTENTS

  GUARDS

  Where the trees rise like cliffs

  THE LITTLE TOWN AT EVENING

  The chime of the bells

  LAST HOURS

  The cool of an oak's unchequered shade

  TOWN

  London

  AFTER THE OPERA

  Down the stone stairs

  GOING BACK

  The night turns slowly round

  ON THE MARCH

  We are out on the open road

  BOMBARDMENT

  The town has opened to the sun

  WINTER-LULL

  Because of the silent snow

  THE ATTACK

  When we came out of the wood

  OBSEQUIAL ODE

  Surely you've trodden straight

  SHADES

  Shall I tell you, then, how it is?--

  BREAD UPON THE WATERS

  So you are lost to me

  RUINATION

  The sun is bleeding its fires upon the mist

  RONDEAU

  The hours have tumbled their leaden sands

  TOMMIES IN THE TRAIN

  The sun shines

  WAR-BABY

  The child like mustard-seed

  NOSTALGIA

  The waning moon looks upward

  COLOPHON

  GUARDS!

  A Review in Hyde Park 1913.

  The Crowd Watches.

  WHERE the trees rise like cliffs, proud and

  blue-tinted in the distance,

  Between the cliffs of the trees, on the grey-

  green park

  Rests a still line of soldiers, red motionless range of

  guards

  Smouldering with darkened busbies beneath the bay-

  onets' slant rain.

  Colossal in nearness a blue police sits still on his horse

  Guarding the path; his hand relaxed at his thigh,

  And skyward his face is immobile, eyelids aslant

  In tedium, and mouth relaxed as if smiling--ineffable

  tedium!

  So! So! Gaily a general canters across the space,

  With white plumes blinking under the evening grey

  sky.

  And suddenly, as if the ground moved

  The red range heaves in slow, magnetic reply.

  EVOLUTIONS OF SOLDIERS

  The red range heaves and compulsory sways, ah see!

  in the flush of a march

  Softly-impulsive advancing as water towards a weir

  from the arch

  Of shadow emerging as blood emerges from inward

  shades of our night

  Encroaching towards a crisis, a meeting, a spasm and

  throb of delight.

  The wave of soldiers, the coming wave, the throbbing

  red breast of approach

  Upon us; dark eyes as here beneath the busbies glit-

  tering, dark threats that broach

  Our beached vessel; darkened rencontre inhuman, and

  closed warm lips, and dark

  Mouth-hair of soldiers passing above us, over the wreck

  of our bark.

  And so, it is ebb-time, they turn, the eyes beneath the

  busbies are gone.

  But the blood has suspended its timbre, the heart from

  out of oblivion

  Knows but the retreat of the burning shoulders, the

  red-swift waves of the sweet

  Fire horizontal declining and ebbing, the twilit ebb of

  retreat.

  THE LITTLE TOWN AT EVENING

  THE chime of the bells, and the church clock

  striking eight

  Solemnly and distinctly cries down the babel

  of children still playing in the hay.

  The church draws nearer upon us, gentle and great

  In shadow, covering us up with her grey.

  Like drowsy children the houses fall asleep

  Under the fleece of shadow, as in between

  Tall and dark the church moves, anxious to keep

  Their sleeping, cover them soft unseen.

  Hardly a murmur comes from the sleeping brood,

  I wish the church had covered me up with the rest

  In the home-place. Why is it she should exclude

  Me so distinctly from sleeping with those I love best?

  LAST HOURS

  THE cool of an oak's unchequered shade

  Falls on me as I lie in deep grass

  Which rushes upward, blade beyond blade,

  While higher the darting grass-flowers pass

  Piercing the blue with their crocketed spires

  And waving flags, and the ragged fires

  Of the sorrel's cresset--a green, brave town

  Vegetable, new in renown.

  Over the tree's edge, as over a mountain

  Surges the white of the moon,

  A cloud comes up like the surge of a fountain,

  Pressing round and low at first, but soon

  Heaving and piling a round white dome.

  How lovely it is to be at home

  Like an insect in the grass

  Letting life pass.

  There's a scent of clover crept through my hair

  From the full resource of some purple dome

  Where that lumbering bee, who can hardly bear

  His burden above me, never has clomb.

  But not even the scent of insouciant flowers

  Makes pause the hours.

  Down the valley roars a townward train.

  I hear it through the grass

  Dragging the links of my shortening chain

  Southwards, alas!

  TOWN

  LONDON

  Used to wear her lights splendidly,

  Flinging her shawl-fringe over the River,

  Tassels in abandon.

  And up in the sky

  A two-eyed clock, like an owl

  Solemnly used to approve, chime, chiming,

  Approval, goggle-eyed fowl.

  There are no gleams on the River,

  No goggling clock;

  No sound from St. Stephen's;

  No lamp-fringed frock.

  Instead,

  Darkness, and skin-wrapped

  Fleet, hurrying limbs,

  Soft-footed dead.

  London

  Original, wolf-wrapped

  In pelts of wolves, all her luminous

  Garments gone.

  London, with hair


  Like a forest darkness, like a marsh

  Of rushes, ere the Romans

  Broke in her lair.

  It is well

  That London, lair of sudden

  Male and female darknesses

  Has broken her spell.

  AFTER THE OPERA

  DOWN the stone stairs

  Girls with their large eyes wide with tragedy

  Lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion

  up at me.

  And I smile.

  Ladies

  Stepping like birds with their bright and pointed feet

  Peer anxiously forth, as if for a boat to carry them out

  of the wreckage,

  And among the wreck of the theatre crowd

  I stand and smile.

  They take tragedy so becomingly.

  Which pleases me.

  But when I meet the weary eyes

  The reddened aching eyes of the bar-man with thin

  arms,

  I am glad to go back to where I came from.

  GOING BACK

  THE NIGHT turns slowly round,

  Swift trains go by in a rush of light;

  Slow trains steal past.

  This train beats anxiously, outward bound.

  But I am not here.

  I am away, beyond the scope of this turning;

  There, where the pivot is, the axis

  Of all this gear.

  I, who sit in tears,

  I, whose heart is torn with parting;

  Who cannot bear to think back to the departure

  platform;

  My spirit hears

  Voices of men

  Sound of artillery, aeroplanes, presences,

  And more than all, the dead-sure silence,

  The pivot again.

  There, at the axis

  Pain, or love, or grief

  Sleep on speed; in dead certainty;

  Pure relief.

  There, at the pivot

  Time sleeps again.

  No has-been, no here-after; only the perfected

  Silence of men.

  ON THE MARCH

  WE are out on the open road.

  Through the low west window a cold light

  flows

  On the floor where never my numb feet trode

  Before; onward the strange road goes.

  Soon the spaces of the western sky

  With shutters of sombre cloud will close.

  But we'll still be together, this road and I,

  Together, wherever the long road goes.

  The wind chases by us, and over the corn

  Pale shadows flee from us as if from their foes.

  Like a snake we thresh on the long, forlorn

  Land, as onward the long road goes.

  From the sky, the low, tired moon fades out;

  Through the poplars the night-wind blows;

  Pale, sleepy phantoms are tossed about

  As the wind asks whither the wan road goes.

  Away in the distance wakes a lamp.

  Inscrutable small lights glitter in rows.

  But they come no nearer, and still we tramp

  Onward, wherever the strange road goes.

  Beat after beat falls sombre and dull.

  The wind is unchanging, not one of us knows

  What will be in the final lull

  When we find the place where this dead road goes.

  For something must come, since we pass and pass

  Along in the coiled, convulsive throes

  Of this marching, along with the invisible grass

  That goes wherever this old road goes.

  Perhaps we shall come to oblivion.

  Perhaps we shall march till our tired toes

  Tread over the edge of the pit, and we're gone

  Down the endless slope where the last road goes.

  If so, let us forge ahead, straight on

  If we're going to sleep the sleep with those

  That fall forever, knowing none

  Of this land whereon the wrong road goes.

  BOMBARDMENT

  THE TOWN has opened to the sun.

  Like a flat red lily with a million petals

  She unfolds, she comes undone.

  A sharp sky brushes upon

  The myriad glittering chimney-tips

  As she gently exhales to the sun.

  Hurrying creatures run

  Down the labyrinth of the sinister flower.

  What is it they shun?

  A dark bird falls from the sun.

  It curves in a rush to the heart of the vast

  Flower: the day has begun.

  WINTER-LULL

  Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed

  Into awe.

  No sound of guns, nor overhead no rushed

  Vibration to draw

  Our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed.

  A crow floats past on level wings

  Noiselessly.

  Uninterrupted silence swings

  Invisibly, inaudibly

  To and fro in our misgivings.

  We do not look at each other, we hide

  Our daunted eyes.

  White earth, and ruins, ourselves, and nothing beside.

  It all belies

  Our existence; we wait, and are still denied.

  We are folded together, men and the snowy ground

  Into nullity.

  There is silence, only the silence, never a sound

  Nor a verity

  To assist us; disastrously silence-bound!

  THE ATTACK

  WHEN we came out of the wood

  Was a great light!

  The night uprisen stood

  In white.

  I wondered, I looked around

  It was so fair. The bright

  Stubble upon the ground

  Shone white

  Like any field of snow;

  Yet warm the chase

  Of faint night-breaths did go

  Across my face!

  White-bodied and warm the night was,

  Sweet-scented to hold in my throat.

  White and alight the night was.

  A pale stroke smote

  The pulse through the whole bland being

  Which was This and me;

  A pulse that still went fleeing,

  Yet did not flee.

  After the terrible rage, the death,

  This wonder stood glistening?

  All shapes of wonder, with suspended breath,

  Arrested listening

  In ecstatic reverie.

  The whole, white Night!--

  With wonder, every black tree

  Blossomed outright.

  I saw the transfiguration

  And the present Host.

  Transubstantiation

  Of the Luminous Ghost.

  OBSEQUIAL ODE

  SURELY you've trodden straight

  To the very door!

  Surely you took your fate

  Faultlessly. Now it's too late

  To say more.

  It is evident you were right,

  That man has a course to go

  A voyage to sail beyond the charted seas.

  You have passed from out of sight

  And my questions blow

  Back from the straight horizon that ends all one sees.

  Now like a vessel in port

  You unlade your riches unto death,

  And glad are the eager dead to receive you there.

  Let the dead sort

  Your cargo out, breath from breath

  Let them disencumber your bounty, let them all share.

  I imagine dead hands are brighter,

  Their fingers in sunset shine

  With jewels of passion once broken through you as a

  prism

  Breaks light i
nto jewels; and dead breasts whiter

  For your wrath; and yes, I opine

  They anoint their brows with your blood, as a perfect

  chrism.

  On your body, the beaten anvil,

  Was hammered out

  That moon-like sword the ascendant dead unsheathe

  Against us; sword that no man will

  Put to rout;

  Sword that severs the question from us who breathe.

  Surely you've trodden straight

  To the very door.

  You have surely achieved your fate;

  And the perfect dead are elate

  To have won once more.

  Now to the dead you are giving

  Your last allegiance.

  But what of us who are living

  And fearful yet of believing

  In your pitiless legions.

  SHADES

  SHALL I tell you, then, how it is?--

  There came a cloven gleam

  Like a tongue of darkened flame

  To flicker in me.

  And so I seem

  To have you still the same

  In one world with me.

  In the flicker of a flower,

  In a worm that is blind, yet strives,

  In a mouse that pauses to listen

  Glimmers our

  Shadow; yet it deprives

  Them none of their glisten.

  In every shaken morsel

  I see our shadow tremble

  As if it rippled from out of us hand in hand.

  As if it were part and parcel,

  One shadow, and we need not dissemble

  Our darkness: do you understand?

  For I have told you plainly how it is.

  BREAD UPON THE WATERS.

  SO you are lost to me!

  Ah you, you ear of corn straight lying,

  What food is this for the darkly flying

  Fowls of the Afterwards!

  White bread afloat on the waters,

  Cast out by the hand that scatters

  Food untowards,

  Will you come back when the tide turns?

  After many days? My heart yearns

  To know.

  Will you return after many days

  To say your say as a traveller says,

  More marvel than woe?

  Drift then, for the sightless birds

  And the fish in shadow-waved herds

  To approach you.

  Drift then, bread cast out;

  Drift, lest I fall in doubt,

  And reproach you.

  For you are lost to me!

  RUINATION

  THE sun is bleeding its fires upon the mist

  That huddles in grey heaps coiling and holding

  back.

  Like cliffs abutting in shadow a drear grey sea

  Some street-ends thrust forward their stack.

  On the misty waste-lands, away from the flushing grey

  Of the morning the elms are loftily dimmed, and tall

  As if moving in air towards us, tall angels

  Of darkness advancing steadily over us all.

  RONDEAU OF A CONSCIENTIOUS

  OBJECTOR.

  THE hours have tumbled their leaden, mono-

  tonous sands

  And piled them up in a dull grey heap in the

  West.

  I carry my patience sullenly through the waste lands;

  To-morrow will pour them all back, the dull hours I

  detest.

  I force my cart through the sodden filth that is pressed

  Into ooze, and the sombre dirt spouts up at my hands

  As I make my way in twilight now to rest.

  The hours have tumbled their leaden, monotonous

  sands.

  A twisted thorn-tree still in the evening stands

  Defending the memory of leaves and the happy round

  nest.

  But mud has flooded the homes of these weary lands

  And piled them up in a dull grey heap in the West.

  All day has the clank of iron on iron distressed

  The nerve-bare place. Now a little silence expands

  And a gasp of relief. But the soul is still compressed:

  I carry my patience sullenly through the waste lands.

  The hours have ceased to fall, and a star commands

  Shadows to cover our stricken manhood, and blest

  Sleep to make us forget: but he understands:

  To-morrow will pour them all back, the dull hours

  I detest.

  TOMMIES IN THE TRAIN

  THE SUN SHINES,

  The coltsfoot flowers along the railway banks

  Shine like flat coin which Jove in thanks

  Strews each side the lines.

  A steeple

  In purple elms, daffodils

  Sparkle beneath; luminous hills

  Beyond--and no people.

  England, Oh Danae

  To this spring of cosmic gold

  That falls on your lap of mould!

  What then are we?

  What are we

  Clay-coloured, who roll in fatigue

  As the train falls league by league

  From our destiny?

  A hand is over my face,

  A cold hand. I peep between the fingers

  To watch the world that lingers

  Behind, yet keeps pace.

  Always there, as I peep

  Between the fingers that cover my face!

  Which then is it that falls from its place