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):
- 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.