RPO -- David Herbert Lawrence : The Enkindled Spring

David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930)

The Enkindled Spring

1This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,

2Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,

3Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between

4Where the wood fumes up, and the flickering, watery rushes.

5I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration

6Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze

7Of growing, these sparks that puff in wild gyration,

8Faces of people streaming across my gaze.

9And I, what fountain of fire am I among

10This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed

11About like a shadow buffeted in the throng

12Of flames, a shadow that's gone astray, and is lost.

Notes

2] emerald: "green-fire" in the 1928 Collected Poems.

7] sparks: "smoke-puffs" in the 1928 Collected Poems.

8] streaming: "blowing" in the 1928 Collected Poems.

9] fountain: "sort" in the 1928 Collected Poems.

10] The last three lines are revised by Lawrence in the 1928 Collected Poems as follows:

This conflagration of spring? the gap in it all!
Not even palish smoke like the rest of the throng.
Less than the wind that runs to the flamy call!

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]): 94. PR 6023 A93A7 Robarts Library
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: May 1911
Composition date note: Revised Nov. 1927-Jan. 1928 (Ellis, 574)
Rhyme: abab

Other poems by David Herbert Lawrence