Analysis of Liaison

David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)



A big bud of moon hangs out of the twilight,
 Star-spiders spinning their thread  
Hang high suspended, withouten respite
 Watching us overhead.  

Come then under the trees, where the leaf-cloths
 Curtain us in so dark
That here we’re safe from even the ermin-moth’s
 Flitting remark.

Here in this swarthy, secret tent,
 Where black boughs flap the ground,
You shall draw the thorn from my discontent,
 Surgeon me sound.  

This rare, rich night! For in here  
 Under the yew-tree tent  
The darkness is loveliest where I could sear
 You like frankincense into scent.  

Here not even the stars can spy us,
 Not even the white moths write
With their little pale signs on the wall, to try us
 And set us affright.

Kiss but then the dust from off my lips,
 But draw the turgid pain  
From my breast to your bosom, eclipse
 My soul again.  

Waste me not, I beg you, waste
 Not the inner night:  
Taste, oh taste and let me taste
 The core of delight.


Scheme ABXB CDCD EFEF XEXE GAGA HXHX IAIA
Poetic Form Quatrain  (86%)
Metre 0111111101 1101011 11010110 101101 1110011011 101011 11011100101 1001 10110101 111101 1110111001 1011 1111101 100111 010111111 1110011 111001111 1100111 111011101111 0111 111011111 110101 111111001 1101 1111111 10101 1110111 01101
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 937
Words 169
Sentences 9
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4
Lines Amount 28
Letters per line (avg) 26
Words per line (avg) 6
Letters per stanza (avg) 102
Words per stanza (avg) 24
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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

50 sec read
45

David Herbert Lawrence

David Herbert Lawrence was an English writer and poet. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. Lawrence's writing explores issues such as sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, and instinct. Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage". At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the literary critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness. more…

All David Herbert Lawrence poems | David Herbert Lawrence Books

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    The repetition of similar sounds at the ends of words or within words is known as _______.
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