The Bride

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



My love looks like a girl to-night,
        But she is old.
    The plaits that lie along her pillow
        Are not gold,
    But threaded with filigree silver,
        And uncanny cold.

    She looks like a young maiden, since her brow
        Is smooth and fair,
    Her cheeks are very smooth, her eyes are closed.
      She sleeps a rare
  Still winsome sleep, so still, and so composed.

  Nay, but she sleeps like a bride, and dreams her dreams
      Of perfect things.
  She lies at last, the darling, in the shape of her dream,
      And her dead mouth sings
  By its shape, like the thrushes in clear evenings.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

31 sec read
41

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXAXA XBCBC XDXDD
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 627
Words 105
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 5, 5

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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