Firelight and Nightfall

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



The darkness steals the forms of all the queens,
But oh, the palms of his two black hands are red,  
Inflamed with binding up the sheaves of dead  
Hours that were once all glory and all queens.  
 
And I remember all the sunny hours
Of queens in hyacinth and skies of gold,  
And morning singing where the woods are scrolled
And diapered above the chaunting flowers.  
 
Here lamps are white like snowdrops in the grass;
The town is like a churchyard, all so still
And grey now night is here; nor will  
Another torn red sunset come to pass.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 20, 2023

30 sec read
49

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABBA CXBC DEED
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 537
Words 101
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 4, 4, 4

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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