D.H. Lawrence & Love Poetry

Thinking about how you can be an overlooked, underrated poet of the past and yet have written some of the most stunning poems ever written. Lawrence isn’t underrated as a novelist, but as a poet, he’s not talked about much. The poetry of his that I looked into didn’t impress me, so I moved on in my restless self-directed study. Recently, this poem was brought to my attention, which I think is one of the most beautiful love poems I’ve ever read (of course, as a rose fancier, I would be captivated by a poem that combines love and roses):

Gloire de Dijon

WHEN she rises in the morning

I linger to watch her;

She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window

And the sunbeams catch her

Glistening white on the shoulders,

While down her sides the mellow

Golden shadow glows as

She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts

Sway like full-blown

Gloire de Dijon roses.

She drips herself with water, and her shoulders

Glisten as silver; they crumble up

Like wet and falling roses, and I listen

For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.

In the window full of sunlight

Concentrates her golden shadow

Fold on fold, until it glows as

Mellow as the glory roses.

D. H. Lawrence

Love poetry is so hard to write. If Lawrence weren’t a first-rate poet, how could he have written such a beautiful love poem? I will be re-thinking his work and getting reacquainted with it.