 Bay. A Book of Poems by D. H. Lawrence. Red for LibriVox.org by Bruce Kachuk. Guards. A Review in Hyde Park, 1913. The Crowd Watches. Where the trees rise like cliffs, proud and blue-tinted in the distance, between the cliffs of the trees, on the gray-green park rests a still line of soldiers. Red, motionless range of guards, smoldering with darkened buzzbees, beneath the bayonets slant rain. Colossal in nearness, a blue police sits still on his horse, guarding the path. His hand relaxed at his thigh, and skyward his face is a mobile, eyelids a slant in tedium, and mouth relaxed as if smiling, ineffable tedium. So, so, galea general canters across the space, with white plumes blinking under the evening gray sky, and suddenly, as if the ground moved, the red-range heaves in slow, magnetic reply. Evolutions of Soldiers. The red-range heaves and compulsory sways, a sea in the flush of a march, softly impulsive, advancing as water towards a weir from the arch of shadow, emerging as blood emerges from inward shades of our night, encroaching towards a crisis of meeting, a spasm, and throb of delight. The wave of Soldiers, the coming wave, the throbbing red breast of approach upon us, dark eyes as here beneath the buzzbees glittering, dark threats that broach our beeched vessel. Darkened, renconter inhuman, and closed warm lips, and dark mouth-hair of Soldiers passing above us over the wreck of our bark. And so it is ebb time. They turn, the eyes beneath the buzzbees are gone, but the blood has suspended its timbre. The heart from out of oblivion knows but the retreat of the burning shoulders, the red swift waves of the sweet fire horizontal, declining and ebbing, the twilight ebb of retreat. And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. The Little Town at Evening by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. The Chime of the Bells and the Church Clock Striking Eight, solemnly and distinctly, cries down the babble of children still playing in the hay. The Church draws nearer upon us, gentle and great in shadow, covering us up with her gray. Like drowsy children, the houses fall asleep under the fleece of shadow. As in between, tall and dark, the Church moves, anxious to keep their sleeping, cover them soft unseen. Hardly a murmur comes from the sleeping brood. I wish the Church had covered me up with the rest in the home-place. Why is it she should exclude me so distinctly from sleeping with those I love best? And a poem, this recording is in the public domain. Last Hours by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. The cool of an oak's uncheckered shade falls on me as I lie in deep grass which rushes upward, blade beyond blade, while higher the darting grass flowers pass, piercing the blue with their crooked inspires and waving flags, and the ragged fires of the sorrel's crescent, a green-brave town vegetable, new in renown. Over the tree's edge as over a mountain surges the white of the moon, a cloud comes up like the surge of a fountain pressing round and low at first, but soon heaving and piling around white dome. How lovely it is to be at home like an insect in the grass letting life pass. There's a scent of clover crept through my hair from the full resource of some purple dome where that lumbering bee who can hardly bear his burden above me never has comb, but not even the scent of ensucian flowers makes pause the hours. Down the valley roars a townward train. I hear it through the grass dragging the links of my shortening chain. Southwards, alas. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. Town by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. London used to wear her lights splendidly, flinging her shawl fringe over the river, tassles in abandon, and up in the sky a two-eyed clock like an owl solemnly used to approve, chime, chiming, approval, goggle-eyed fowl. There are no gleams on the river, no goggling clock, no sound from St. Stephen's, no lamp-fringed frock. Instead, darkness and skin-wrapped fleet hurrying limbs, soft-footed dead. London, original, wolf-wrapped in pelts of wolves, all her luminous garments gone. London, with hair like a forest darkness, like a marsh of rushes, ere the Romans broke in her lair. It is well that London, lair of sudden male and female darknesses, has broken her spell. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. After the Opera by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. Down the stone stairs, girls with their large eyes, wide with tragedy, lift looks of shocked and momentous emotion up at me, and I smile. Ladies stepping like birds with their bright and pointed feet, peer anxiously forth as if for a boat to carry them out of the wreckage, and among the wreck of the theatre-crowd, I stand and smile. They take tragedy so becomingly, which pleases me. But when I meet the weary eyes, the reddened, aching eyes of the barman with thin arms, I am glad to go back to where I came from. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. Going back by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. The night turns slowly round, swift trains go by, in a rush of light, slow trains steal past. This train beats anxiously, outward bound. But I am not here. I am away, beyond the scope of this turning. There, where the pivot is, the axis of all this gear. I, who sit in tears. I, whose heart is torn with parting, who cannot bear to think back to the departure platform. My spirit hears voices of men, sound of artillery, aeroplanes, presences, and more than all, the dead sure silence, the pivot again. There, at the axis, pain or love or grief, sleep on speed, in dead certainty, pure relief. There, at the pivot, time sleeps again. No has been, no hereafter, only the perfected silence of men. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. On the March by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. We are out on the open road, through the low west window, a cold light flows on the floor, where never my numb feet trod before. Onward, the strange road goes. Soon the spaces of the western sky, with shutters of somber cloud, will close, but will still be together, this road and I, together, wherever the long road goes. The wind chases by us, and over the corn, pale shadows flee from us, as if from their foes, like a snake we thresh on the long four-lorn land, as onward the long road goes. From the sky, the low-tired moon fades out, through the poplars the night wind blows. Pale sleepy phantoms are tossed about, as the wind asks wither the one road goes. Away in the distance wakes a lamp, inscrutable small lights glitter in rows, but they come no nearer, and still we tramp. Onward, wherever the strange road goes. Beat after beat falls somber and dull. The wind is unchanging, not one of us knows what will be in the final lull, when we find the place where this dead road goes. For something must come, since we pass and pass along in the coiled, convulsive throes of this marching along with the invisible grass that goes wherever this old road goes. Perhaps we shall come to oblivion, perhaps we shall march till our tired toes tread over the edge of the pit, and we're gone down the endless slope where the last road goes. If so, let us forge ahead, straight on, if we're going to sleep the sleep with those that fall forever, knowing none of this land, whereon the wrong road goes. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. Bumbardment by D. H. Lawrence The town has opened to the sun, like a flat red lily with a million petals she unfolds, she comes undone. A sharp sky brushes upon the myriad glittering chimney tips, as she gently exhales to the sun, hurrying creatures run down the labyrinth of the sinister flower. What is it they shun? A dark bird falls from the sun, it curves in a rush to the heart of the vast flower. The day has begun. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. Winter Lull by D. H. Lawrence Because of the silent snow, we are all hushed into awe, no sound of guns, no overhead, no rushed vibration to draw our attention out of the void wherein we are crushed. A crow floats past on level wings, noiselessly. Uninterrupted silence swings invisibly, inaudibly to and fro in our misgivings. We do not look at each other, we hide our daunted eyes, white earth and ruins, ourselves and nothing beside. It all belies our existence, we wait and are still denied. We are folded together, men and the snowy ground into nullity. There is silence, only the silence, never a sound nor a verity to assist us. Disastrously, silence bound. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. The Attack by D. H. Lawrence Read for LibriVox.org When we came out of the wood was a great light, the night of prison stood in white. I wondered, I looked around, it was so fair, the bright stubble up on the ground shone white, like any field of snow. Yet warm the chase of faint night-breaths did go across my face. White-bodied and warm the night was, sweet-centered to hold in my throat, white and alight the night was. A pale stroke smote the pulse through the whole bland being, which was this and me, a pulse that still went fleeing, yet did not flee. After the terrible rage, the death, this wonder stood glistening. All shapes of wonder, with suspended breath, arrested listening in ecstatic reverie, the whole white night. With wonder, every black tree blossomed outright. I saw the transfiguration and the present host, transubstantiation of the luminous ghost. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Obsequial Ode by D. H. Lawrence. My questions blow back from the straight horizon that ends all one sees. Now, like a vessel in port, you one laid your riches unto death, and glad are the eager dead to receive you there. Let the dead sort your cargo out, breath from breath, let them disencomber your bounty, let them all share. I imagine dead hands are brighter, their fingers in sunset shine with jewels of passion once broken through you, as a prism breaks light into jewels, and dead breasts whiter for your wrath. And yes, I opine they anoint their brows with your blood as a perfect chrism. On your body the beaten anvil was hammered out that moon-like sword, the ascendant dead, unsheathed against us, sword that no man will put to route, sword that severs the question from us who breathe. Surely you've trodden straight to the very door, you have surely achieved your fate, and the perfect dead are relate to have won once more. Now to the dead you are giving your last allegiance, but what of us who are living and fearful yet of believing in your pitiless legions. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Shades by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. Shall I tell you then how it is? There came a cloven gleam, like a tongue of darkened flame, to flicker in me, and so I seem to have you still the same in one world with me, in the flicker of a flower, in a worm that is blind, yet strives, in a mouse that pauses to listen, glimmers our shadow, yet it deprives them none of their glisten. In every shaken morsel I see our shadow tremble, as if it rippled from out of us, hand in hand, as if it were part and parcel, one shadow, and we need not disemble our darkness. Do you understand? For I have told you plainly how it is. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Bread upon the waters, by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. So you are lost to me. Ah, you! You are of corn straight lying. What food is this for the darkly flying fowls of the afterwards? White bread of float on the waters, cast out by the hand that scatters food on towards. Will you come back when the tide turns, after many days? My heart yearns to know. Will you return after many days to say your say, as a traveler says, more marvel than woe? Drift then, for the sightless birds and the fish in shadow-waved herds to approach you. Drift then, bread cast out. Drift, lest I fall in doubt and reproach you, for you are lost to me. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Ruination by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. The sun is bleeding its fires upon the mist that huddles in gray heaps, coiling and holding back, like cliffs abutting in shadow-adrear gray sea, some street ends thrust forward their stack, on the misty wastelands away from the flushing gray of the morning, the elms are loftily dimmed, and tall as if moving in air towards us, tall angels of darkness advancing steadily over us all. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Rondo of a Conscientious Objector, by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. The hours have tumbled their leaden monotonous sands, and piled them up in a dull gray heap in the west. I carry my patience suddenly through the wastelands. Tomorrow will pour them all back, the dull hours I detest. I force my cart through the sodden filth that is pressed into ooze, and the somber dirt spouts up at my hands as I make my way in twilight now to rest. The hours have tumbled their leaden monotonous sands. A twisted thorn-tree still in the evening stands defending the memory of leaves and the happy round nest, but mud has flooded the homes of these weary lands, and piled them up in a dull gray heap in the west. All day has the clank of iron on iron distressed the nerf bear place. Now a little silence expands and a gasp of relief, but the soul is still compressed. I carry my patience suddenly through the wastelands. The hours have ceased to fall, and a star commands shadows to cover our stricken manhood and blessed sleep to make us forget, but he understands. Tomorrow will pour them all back, the dull hours I detest. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. Tommies in the Train by D. H. Lawrence, read for LibriVox.org. The sun shines. The cold foot flowers along the railway banks shine like flat coin, which jove in thanks strews each side the lines. A steeple in purple elms, daffodils sparkle beneath luminous hills beyond, and no people. England, O'Danahee, to this spring of cosmic gold that falls on your lap of mold, what then are we? What are we, clay-colored, who roll in fatigue as the train falls league by league from our destiny? A hand is over my face, a cold hand. I peep between the fingers to watch the world that lingers behind, yet keeps pace. Always there as I peep between the fingers that cover my face, which then is it that falls from its place and rolls down the steep? Is it the train that falls like meteorite backward into space to alight never again? Or is it the illusory world that falls from reality as we look? Or are we like a thunderbolt hurled? One or another is lost since we fall apart endlessly. In one motion depart, from each other. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. War, baby. By D. H. Lawrence. Read for LibriVox.org. The child, like mustard seed, rolls out of the husk of death into the woman's fertile, fathomless lap. Look, it has taken root. See how it flourishes. See how it rises with magical rosy sap. As for our faith, it was there when we did not know, did not care. It fell from our husk like a little hasty seed. Sing, it is all we need. Sing, for the little weed will flourish its branches in heaven when we slumber beneath. And a poem. This recording is in the public domain. Nostalgia. By D. H. Lawrence. Read for LibriVox.org. The waning moon looks upward. This gray night slopes round the heavens in one smooth curve of easy sailing. Odd red wicks serve to show where the ships at sea move out of sight. The place is palpable me. For here I was born of this self-same darkness. Yet the shadowy house below is out of bounds, and only the old ghosts know I have come. I feel them whimper in welcome, and mourn. My father suddenly died in the harvesting corn, and the place is no longer ours. Watching, I hear no sound from the strangers. The place is dark, and fear opens my eyes till the roots of my vision seems torn. Can I go no nearer, never towards the door? The ghosts and I, we mourn together, and shrink in the shadow of the cart shed. Must we hover on the brink for ever, and never enter the homestead any more? Is it irrevocable? Can I really not go through the open yard way? Can I not go past the sheds and through to the moey? Only the dead in their beds can know the fearful anguish that this is so. I kiss the stones. I kiss the moss on the wall, and wish I could pass impregnate into the place. I wish I could take it all in a lost embrace. I wish with my breast I here could annihilate it all. End of poem. This recording is in the public domain. End of Bay, a book of poems by D. H. Lawrence.