Poems by D.H.

Lawrence

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Contents Navigation

Introduction...................................................................................(2)

Poem 1: In a Boat ..........................................................................(3)

Poem 2: Thought............................................................................(4)

Poem 3: A Living ............................................................................(5)

Poem 4: Sick..................................................................................(6)

Poem 5: Discord in Childhood...........................................................(7)

Poem 6: Piano................................................................................(8)

Poem 7 : Self-pity............................................................................(9)

Poem 8: Search for Love...............................................................(10)

C o l o p h o n . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ( 11 )

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Introduction
D
.H. Lawrence (1885-1930), English novelist, storywriter, critic, poet and painter, one of the
greatest figures in 20th-century English literature.

David Herbert Lawrence was born on September 11, 1885, in Eastwood, Nottinghamshire,
central England. He was the fourth child of a struggling coal miner who was a heavy drinker. His
mother was a former schoolteacher, greatly superior in education to her husband. Lawrence’s
childhood was dominated by poverty and friction between his parents. He was educated at
Nottingham High School, to which he had won a scholarship. He worked as a clerk in a surgical
appliance factory and then for four years as a pupil-teacher. After studies at Nottingham University,
Lawrence matriculated at 22 and briefly pursued a teaching career.

He worked as a clerk in a surgical appliance factory and then for four years as a pupil-teacher.
After studies at Nottingham University, Lawrence matriculated at 22 and briefly pursued a
teaching career. Lawrence’s mother died in 1910; he helped her die by giving her an overdose of
sleeping medicine.

In 1909, a number of Lawrence’s poems were published by Ford Max Ford in the English Review. The
appearance of his first novel, The White Peacock(1911), launched Lawrence into a writing career. In
1912 he met Frieda von Richthofen, the professor Ernest Weekly’s wife and fell in love with her. In
1914 Lawrence married Frieda von Richthofen, and traveled with her in several countries.

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Poem 1 :

I n a Boat
S ee the stars, love,
In the water much clearer and brighter
Than those above us, and whiter,
Like nenuphars!
There! Did you see
That spark fly up at us? Even
Star-shadow shine, love: Stars are not safe in heaven!
How many stars in your bowl? What of me then, love, me?
How many shadows in your soul?
Only mine, love mine? What then, love, if soon
When I move the oars, see Your star be tossed over a wave?
How the stars are tossed, Would the darkness look like a grave?
Distorted, even lost! Would you swoon, love, swoon?
Even yours, do you see?

The poor waters spill

The star, waters troubled forsaken !-
The heavens are not shaken, you say, love;
Its stars stand still.

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Poem 2 :

T hought
T hought, I love thought.
But not the jaggling and twisting od already existent ideas
I despise that self-important game.
Thought is the welling up of unknown life into consciousness,
Thought is the testing of statements on the touchstone of the conscience,
Thought is gazing on to the face of life, and reading what can be read,
Thought is pondering over experience, and coming to conclusion.
Thought is not a trick, or an exercise, or a set of dodges,
Thought is a man in his wholeness wholly attending.

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Poem 3 :

A Living

A man should never earn his living,

If he earns his life he’ll be lovely.

A bird
Picks up its seeds or little snails
Between heedless earth and heaven
In heedlessness.

But, the plucky little sport, it gives to life

Song, and chirruping, gay feathers, fluff-shadowed warmth
And all the unspeakable charm of birds hopping and fluttering
and being birds.
And we, we get it all from them for nothing.

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Poem 4 :

S ick
I am sick, because I have given myself away.
I have given myself to the people when they came
So cultured, even bringing little gifts,
So they pecked a shred of my life, and flew off with a croak
Of sneaking exultance.
So now I have lost too much, and am sick.

I am trying now to learn never

To give of my life to the dead,
Never, not the tiniest shred.

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Poem 5 :

D iscord in Childhood
O utside the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,
And at night when the wind rose, the lash of the tree
Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship’s
Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously.

Within the house two voices arose, a slender lash

Whistling she-delirious rage, and the dreadful sound
Of a male thong booming and bruising, until it had drowned
The other voice in a silence of blood, ‘neath the noise of the ash

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Poem 6 :

P iano
S oftly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;
Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see
A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings
And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she
sings.

In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song

Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong
To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside
And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide.

So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour

With the great black piano appassionato.
The glamour of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast
Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.

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Poem 7 :

S elf-pity
I never saw a wild thing
Sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
Without ever having felt sorry for itself.

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Poem 8 :

S earch for Love

T hose that search for love
Only make manifest their own lovelessness,

And the loveless never find love,

Only the loving find love,
And they never have never seek for it.

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Colophon

The following softwares were used in creating this e-book:

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This e-book is designed by Serah Kok, only for educational purpose.

Text source from D.H. Lawrence, Poems for Young People by William Cole.
Portrait of D.H. Lawrence illustrated by Serah Kok. Music extract from Va-Ro-
mance, Romance: Music for Piano(1994), Audio CD, 1 Disc, Emd/Narada, ASIN:
B000005OZ8 Song Number 2. Old Family Portrait- Kostia