At the Window

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



The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters  
Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter;  
While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.  
 
Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede,  
Winding about their dimness the mist’s grey cerements, after
The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to bleed.  
 
The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as they pass  
To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with two dark-filled eyes  
That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window glass.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

29 sec read
93

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABA CBC DXD
Closest metre Iambic octameter
Characters 595
Words 99
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 3, 3, 3

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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