a woman and her dead husband by d h lawrence

Ah, stern cold man,
How can you lie so relentless hard
While I wash you with weeping water!
Ah, face, carved hard and cold,
You have been like this, on your guard
Against me, since death began.

You masquerader!
How can you shame to act this part
Of unswerving indifference to me?
It is not you; why disguise yourself
Against me, to break my heart,
You evader?

You’ve a warm mouth,
A good warm mouth always sooner to soften
Even than your sudden eyes.
Ah cruel, to keep your mouth
Relentless, however often
I kiss it in drouth.

You are not he.
Who are you, lying in his place on the bed
And rigid and indifferent to me?
His mouth, though he laughed or sulked
Was always warm and red
And good to me.

And his eyes could see
The white moon hang like a breast revealed
By the slipping shawl of stars,
Could see the small stars tremble
As the heart beneath did wield
Systole, diastole.

And he showed it me
So, when he made his love to me;
And his brows like rocks on the sea jut out,
And his eyes were deep like the sea
With shadow, and he looked at me,
Till I sank in him like the sea,
Awfully.

Oh, he was multiform –
Which then was he among the manifold?
The gay, the sorrowful, the seer?
I have loved a rich race of men in one –
But not this, this never-warm
Metal-cold – !

Ah, masquerader!
With your steel face white-enamelled
Were you he, after all, and I never
Saw you or felt you in kissing?
– Yet sometimes my heart was trammelled
With fear, evader!

You will not stir,
Nor hear me, not a sound.
– Then it was you –
And all this time you were
Like this when I lived with you.
It is not true,
I am frightened, I am frightened of you
And of everything.
O God! – God too
Has deceived me in everything,
In everything.

impressions

About language. Drouth means drought. Systole is the contraction of the heart; diastole is the relaxation of the heart. So by reading a poem by D H Lawrence you can find out what that blood pressure reading really means. There are some strong contrasts: stern cold, carved hard and cold, metal – cold, steel face white-enamelled. Against warm mouth, soften, warm and red, kissing. One other nice contrast is D H Lawrence’s: slipping shawl of stars with Lawrence Durrell’s: the waters a moving floor of stars I talked about last week.

There are love poems by men. And there are love poems by women. This is a love poem by a man from the point of view of a woman. So first of all I admire Lawrence’s bravery. And as a human and as a man I think it is a sensual and passionate poem.

So we have the question: why did D H Lawrence write this poem from the point of view of a woman? He could simply have described the scene of mourning. But instead of showing us a photograph he brought us into the bedroom and into the widow’s head and heart and memories. And even into the embraces and kisses between the lovers. Was this woman’s pure passionate love the way he thought he was loved? Or the way he wanted to be loved? I also wonder about the seer in the seventh stanza.  Did her husband know he was going to die? Did he tell her?

The poem rings true (to me as a man). The fury at the lover for having died. The mood changes (signalled by the changes from you to he to you). The sensual memories. Recalling all his different facets: I have loved a rich race of men in one. The doubt. The bitterness. The despair.

The subtle rhyme scheme is often almost imperceptible. The poem finishes: God too has deceived me in everything. In everything. It doesn’t seem like you have been reading a structured poem. And yet some of the rhymes are bold and innovative. Masquerader! Evader! White-enamelled. Trammelled.

Finally the poem trails off into silence leaving the woman alone keening in the desolation and anger of her loss.

niall

free e-book: Some Imagist Poets on project gutenberg 

free e-books of works by D H Lawrence on project gutenberg australia

D H Lawrence on wikipedia

The Complete Poems of D H Lawrence on Amazon

photo: aurora by Frances Lane used with permission:  

his eyes could see
The white moon hang like a breast revealed
By the slipping shawl of stars