Scent of Irises

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



A faint, sickening scent of irises
Persists all morning. Here in a jar on the table  
A fine proud spike of purple irises  
Rising above the class-room litter, makes me unable
To see the class’s lifted and bended faces
Save in a broken pattern, amid purple and gold and sable.
 
I can smell the gorgeous bog-end, in its breathless  
Dazzle of may-blobs, when the marigold glare overcast you  
With fire on your cheeks and your brow and your chin as you dipped
Your face in the marigold bunch, to touch and contrast you,
Your own dark mouth with the bridal faint lady-smocks,  
Dissolved on the golden sorcery you should not outlast.  
 
You amid the bog-end’s yellow incantation,  
You sitting in the cowslips of the meadow above,  
Me, your shadow on the bog-flame, flowery may-blobs,
Me full length in the cowslips, muttering you love;  
You, your soul like a lady-smock, lost, evanescent,  
You with your face all rich, like the sheen of a dove.  
 
You are always asking, do I remember, remember
The butter-cup bog-end where the flowers rose up
And kindled you over deep with a cast of gold?  
You ask again, do the healing days close up  
The open darkness which then drew us in,  
The dark which then drank up our brimming cup.
 
You upon the dry, dead beech-leaves, in the fire of night
Burnt like a sacrifice; you invisible;  
Only the fire of darkness, and the scent of you!  
—And yes, thank God, it still is possible  
The healing days shall close the darkness up
Wherein we fainted like a smoke or dew.
 
Like vapour, dew, or poison. Now, thank God,
The fire of night is gone, and your face is ash
Indistinguishable on the grey, chill day;  
The night had burst us out, at last the good  
Dark fire burns on untroubled, without clash
Of you upon the dead leaves saying me Yea.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

1:35 min read
87

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABABXB XCXCAX XDXDXD XEXEXE XBCBEC XFGXFG
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 1,762
Words 319
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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