Sorrow

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



Why does the thin grey strand  
Floating up from the forgotten  
Cigarette between my fingers,  
Why does it trouble me?  
 
Ah, you will understand;
When I carried my mother downstairs,
A few times only, at the beginning  
Of her soft-foot malady,  
 
I should find, for a reprimand
To my gaiety, a few long grey hairs
On the breast of my coat; and one by one
I let them float up the dark chimney.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 06, 2023

22 sec read
67

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABXC ADXC ADBC
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 393
Words 75
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 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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