A Love Song

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



Reject me not if I should say to you
I do forget the sounding of your voice,  
I do forget your eyes that searching through  
The mists perceive our marriage, and rejoice.  
 
Yet, when the apple-blossom opens wide
Under the pallid moonlight’s fingering,  
I see your blanched face at my breast, and hide  
My eyes from diligent work, malingering.  
 
Ah, then, upon my bedroom I do draw  
The blind to hide the garden, where the moon
Enjoys the open blossoms as they straw  
Their beauty for his taking, boon for boon.  
 
And I do lift my aching arms to you,  
And I do lift my anguished, avid breast,  
And I do weep for very pain of you,
And fling myself at the doors of sleep, for rest.  
 
And I do toss through the troubled night for you,  
Dreaming your yielded mouth is given to mine,  
Feeling your strong breast carry me on into  
The peace where sleep is stronger even than wine.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 30, 2023

49 sec read
92

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF AGAG AHAH
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 878
Words 164
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4

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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