Perfidy

David Herbert Lawrence 1885 (Eastwood, Nottinghamshire) – 1930 (Vence)



Hollow rang the house when I knocked on the door,
And I lingered on the threshold with my hand  
Upraised to knock and knock once more:  
Listening for the sound of her feet across the floor,
Hollow re-echoed my heart.
 
The low-hung lamps stretched down the road
With shadows drifting underneath,  
With a music of soft, melodious feet  
Quickening my hope as I hastened to meet
The low-hung light of her eyes.
 
The golden lamps down the street went out,
The last car trailed the night behind;  
And I in the darkness wandered about  
With a flutter of hope and of dark-shut doubt
In the dying lamp of my love.
 
Two brown ponies trotting slowly  
Stopped at a dim-lit trough to drink:  
The dark van drummed down the distance slowly;
While the city stars so dim and holy  
Drew nearer to search through the streets.
 
A hastening car swept shameful past,  
I saw her hid in the shadow,  
I saw her step to the curb, and fast  
Run to the silent door, where last  
I had stood with my hand uplifted.
She clung to the door in her haste to enter,
Entered, and quickly cast  
It shut behind her, leaving the street aghast.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:01 min read
80

Quick analysis:

Scheme AXAAX XXBBX CXCCX DXDDX EXEEXXEE
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 1,098
Words 205
Stanzas 5
Stanza Lengths 5, 5, 5, 5, 8

David Herbert Lawrence

David Herbert Lawrence was an English writer and poet. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation. Lawrence's writing explores issues such as sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, and instinct. Lawrence's opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his "savage pilgrimage". At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as "the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation." Later, the literary critic F. R. Leavis championed both his artistic integrity and his moral seriousness. more…

All David Herbert Lawrence poems | David Herbert Lawrence Books

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