Valentine's Day wouldn't be much fun without one tiny
surprise -- the flash of wings as a hawk flies by; holding hands with
someone for five minutes while looking up at the stars at night; maybe
even two poems where only one had been expected.
These two poems are from D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930),
better known to some as the author of that once-banned (and perhaps
often read aloud on Valentine's Day...) book, Lady
Chatterly's Lover. Lawrence's poetry indicates
he was just as soft-hearted as the rest of us. Born in 1885 in the north
of England, he lived most of his adult life abroad, finally settling
in Italy, where he died in 1930. He was not a particularly healthy person,
but it did not stop him from, in 1912, running away to Germany, then
Italy, with Freida Weekley, a married woman 14 years his senior. They
wed (after she was divorced) in 1914, and lived and loved happily ever
after. The two poems below are reprinted in Lawrence's Complete
Poems.
Two Poems by D.H. Lawrence
Flapper
From New Poems, 1916.
Love
has crept out of her sealéd heart
As a field-bee, black and amber,
Breaks from the winter-cell, to clamber
Up the warm grass where the sunbeams start.
Mischief has come in her dawning eyes,
And a glint of coloured iris brings
Such as lies along the folded wings
Of the bee before he flies.
Who, with a ruffling, careful breath,
Has opened the wings of the wild young sprite?
Has fluttered her spirit to stumbling flight
In her eyes, as a young bee stumbleth?
Love makes the burden of her voice.
The hum of his heavy, staggering wings
Sets quivering with wisdom the common things
That she says, and her words rejoice.
In a
Boat
From Amores, 1916.
See the stars, love,
In the water much clearer and brighter
Than those above us, and whiter,
Like nenuphars.
Star-shadows shine, love,
How many stars in your bowl?
How many shadows in your soul,
Only mine, love, mine?
When I move the oars, love,
See how the stars are tossed,
Distorted, the brightest lost.
-- So that bright one of yours, love.
The poor waters spill
The stars, waters broken, forsaken.
-- The heavens are not shaken, you say, love,
Its stars stand still.
There, did you see
That spark fly up at us; even
Stars are not safe in heaven.
-- What of yours, then, love, yours?
What then, love, if soon
Your light be tossed over a wave?
Will you count the darkness a grave,
And swoon, love, swoon?
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