Swan
Swan
Original Text
D. H. Lawrence, Pansies: Poems (London: Martin Secker, 1929): 26. PR 6023 A93P3 1929 Robarts Library
1Far-off
2at the core of space
3at the quick
4of time
5beats
6and goes still
7the great swan upon the waters of all endings
8the swan within vast chaos, within the electron.
9For us
10no longer he swims calmly
11nor clacks across the forces furrowing a great gay trail
12of happy energy,
13nor is he nesting passive upon the atoms,
14nor flying north desolative icewards
15to the sleep of ice,
16nor feeding in the marshes,
17nor honking horn-like into the twilight. --
18But he stoops, now
19in the dark
20upon us;
21he is treading our women
22and we men are put out
23as the vast white bird
24furrows our featherless women
25with unknown shocks
26and stamps his black marsh-feet on their white and marshy flesh.
Publication Start Year
1929
Publication Notes
See Roberts A47
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 2000.
Form