Blue

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



The earth again like a ship steams out of the dark sea over
The edge of the blue, and the sun stands up to see us glide
Slowly into another day; slowly the rover  
Vessel of darkness takes the rising tide.  
 
I, on the deck, am startled by this dawn confronting
Me who am issued amazed from the darkness, stripped
And quailing here in the sunshine, delivered from haunting
The night unsounded whereon our days are shipped.  
 
Feeling myself undawning, the day’s light playing upon me,
I who am substance of shadow, I all compact
Of the stuff of the night, finding myself all wrongly  
Among the crowds of things in the sunshine jostled and racked.
 
I with the night on my lips, I sigh with the silence of death;
And what do I care though the very stones should cry me unreal, though the clouds  
Shine in conceit of substance upon me, who am less than the rain.
Do I know the darkness within them? What are they but shrouds?
 
The clouds go down the sky with a wealthy ease  
Casting a shadow of scorn upon me for my share in death; but I
Hold my own in the midst of them, darkling, defy  
The whole of the day to extinguish the shadow I lift on the breeze.
 
Yea, though the very clouds have vantage over me,  
Enjoying their glancing flight, though my love is dead,  
I still am not homeless here, I’ve a tent by day  
Of darkness where she sleeps on her perfect bed.  
 
And I know the host, the minute sparkling of darkness
Which vibrates untouched and virile through the grandeur of night,
But which, when dawn crows challenge, assaulting the vivid motes
Of living darkness, bursts fretfully, and is bright:  
 
   Runs like a fretted arc-lamp into light,  
   Stirred by conflict to shining, which else
   Were dark and whole with the night.  
 
   Runs to a fret of speed like a racing wheel,  
   Which else were aslumber along with the whole  
   Of the dark, swinging rhythmic instead of a-reel.  

   Is chafed to anger, bursts into rage like thunder;
   Which else were a silent grasp that held the heavens
   Arrested, beating thick with wonder.  
 
   Leaps like a fountain of blue sparks leaping  
   In a jet from out of obscurity,  
   Which erst was darkness sleeping.
 
   Runs into streams of bright blue drops,  
   Water and stones and stars, and myriads  
   Of twin-blue eyes, and crops  
 
   Of floury grain, and all the hosts of day,  
   All lovely hosts of ripples caused by fretting
   The Darkness into play.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

2:08 min read
132

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABAB CDCD EFEF XGXG HIIH EJKJ XLXL LXL MXM AXA CEC NGN KCK
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 2,397
Words 428
Stanzas 13
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 4, 3, 3, 3, 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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