The Virgin Mother

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



My little love, my darling,  
You were a doorway to me;  
You let me out of the confines
Into this strange countrie,  
Where people are crowded like thistles,
Yet are shapely and comely to see.
 
My little love, my dearest  
Twice have you issued me,  
Once from your womb, sweet mother,
Once from myself, to be
Free of all hearts, my darling,  
Of each heart’s home-life free.  
 
And so, my love, my mother,  
I shall always be true to you;  
Twice I am born, my dearest,
To life, and to death, in you;  
And this is the life hereafter  
Wherein I am true.  
 
I kiss you good-bye, my darling,  
Our ways are different now;
You are a seed in the night-time,  
I am a man, to plough  
The difficult glebe of the future  
For God to endow.  
 
I kiss you good-bye, my dearest,
It is finished between us here.
Oh, if I were calm as you are,
Sweet and still on your bier!
O God, if I had not to leave you
Alone, my dear!
 
Let the last word be uttered,  
Oh grant the farewell is said!  
Spare me the strength to leave you  
Now you are dead.  
I must go, but my soul lies helpless
Beside your bed.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on April 21, 2023

1:03 min read
166

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABXCXB DBCBAB CEDECC AFXFCF DCCCEC XGEGXG
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 1,066
Words 211
Stanzas 6
Stanza Lengths 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6

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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