Bay

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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: ISO-8859-1
? 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 greygreen?park?Rests a still line of soldiers, red motionless range of?guards?Smouldering with darkened busbies beneath the bayonets'?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 glittering,?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