Dreams Old

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



I have opened the window to warm my hands on the sill
Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon  
Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still  
In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.  
 
The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,
Like savage music striking far off, and there  
On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and shine  
Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.
 
There lies the world, my darling, full of wonder and wistfulness and strange
Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as I greet the cloud
Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range
At the back of my life’s horizon, where the dreamings of past lives crowd.
 
Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil
Of the afternoon glows to me the old romance of David and Dora,
With the old, sweet, soothing tears, and laughter that shakes the sail
Of the ship of the soul over seas where dreamed dreams lure the unoceaned explorer.
 
All the bygone, hushèd years  
Streaming back where the mist distils  
Into forgetfulness: soft-sailing waters where fears
No longer shake, where the silk sail fills
With an unfelt breeze that ebbs over the seas, where the storm
Of living has passed, on and on  
Through the coloured iridescence that swims in the warm
Wake of the tumult now spent and gone,  
Drifts my boat, wistfully lapsing after
The mists of vanishing tears and the echo of laughter.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:16 min read
46

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF GXGH IIIXJXJXHH
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 1,423
Words 255
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 10

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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