Bitterness of death

by D. H. Lawrence

　　

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IAH, stern, cold man,How can you lie so relentless hardWhile I wash you with weeping water!Do you set your face against the daughterOf life? Can you never discardYour curt pride's ban?You masquerader!How can you shame to act this partOf unswerving indifference to me?You want at last, ah me!To break my heartEvader!You know your mouthWas always sooner to softenEven than your eyes.Now shut it liesRelentless, however oftenI kiss it in drouth.It has no breathNor any relaxing. Where,Where are you, what have you done?What is this mouth of stone?How did you dareTake cover in death!IIOnce you could see,The white moon show like a breast revealedBy the slipping shawl of stars.Could see the small stars trembleAs the heart beneath did wieldSystole, diastole.All the lovely macrocosmWas woman once to you,Bride to your groom.No tree in bloomBut it leaned you a newWhite bosom.And always and everSoft as a summering treeUnfolds from the sky, for your good,Unfolded womanhood;Shedding you down as a treeSheds its flowers on a river.I saw your browsSet like rocks beside a sea of gloom,And I shed my very soul down into your thought;Like flowers I fell, to be caughtOn the comforted pool, like bloomThat leaves the boughs.IIIOh, masquerader,With a hard face white-enamelled,What are you now?Do you care no longer howMy heart is trammelled,Evader?Is this you, after all,Metallic, obdurateWith bowels of steel?Did you never feel?—Cold, insensate,Mechanical!Ah, no!—you multiform,You that I loved, you wonderful,You who darkened and shone,You were many men in one;But never this nullThis never-warm!Is this the sum of you?Is it all nought?Cold, metal-cold?Are you all toldHere, iron-wrought?Is this what's become of you?

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