Representative Poetry Online
  Poet Index Poem Index Random Search
  Introduction Timeline Calendar Glossary Criticism Bibliography
  RPO Canadian Poetry UTEL
by Name
by Date
by Title
by First Line
by Last Line
Poet
Poem
Short poem
Keyword
Concordance

David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)

The Bride


              1My love looks like a girl to-night,
              2    But she is old.
              3The plaits that lie along her pillow
              4    Are not gold,
              5But threaded with filigree silver,
              6    And uncanny cold.

              7She looks like a young maiden, since her brow
              8    Is smooth and fair,
              9Her cheeks are very smooth, her eyes are closed.
            10    She sleeps a rare
            11Still winsome sleep, so still, and so composed.

            12Nay, but she sleeps like a bride, and dreams her dreams
            13    Of perfect things.
            14She lies at last, the darling, in the shape of her dream,
            15    And her dead mouth sings
            16By its shape, like the thrushes in clear evenings.

Notes

1] Gilbert notes that this poem is "related to a passage from Sons and Lovers (in Chapter Fourteen)" (65).

16] the thrushes: reads "thrushes" in 1928.

Online text copyright © 2009, Ian Lancashire (the Department of English) and the University of Toronto.
Published by the Web Development Group, Information Technology Services, University of Toronto Libraries.

Original text: D. H. Lawrence, Amores: Poems (London: Duckworth, [1921]): 62. PR 6023 A93A7 Robarts Library. Also D. H. Lawrence, Collected Poems (New York: Jonathan Cope, 1929): I, 117.
First publication date: 1921
Publication date note: see Roberts A9
RPO poem editor: Ian Lancashire
RP edition: RPO 2000.
Recent editing: 4:2001/12/28

Composition date: December 1910
Composition date note: Revised Nov. 1927 (Ellis, 573)
Rhyme: abcbdb efgfg hihii

Other poems by David Herbert Lawrence

Your comments and questions are welcomed.
All contents copyright © Ian Lancashire (Department of English) and the University of Toronto
RPO is hosted by the University of Toronto Libraries.