D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930). Amores. 1916.
30. Drunk
T
To save me from this haunted road,
Whose lofty roses break and blow
On a night-sky bent with a load
Each arc-lamp golden does expose
Ghost beyond ghost of a blossom, shows
Night blenched with a thousand snows.
White lilac; shows discoloured night
Dripping with all the golden lees
Laburnum gives back to light.
On high to the purple heaven of night,
Like flags in blenched blood newly wet,
Blood shed in the noiseless fight.
Of hunger for a little food,
Of kissing, lost for want of a wife
Long ago, long ago wooed.
. . . . . .
Too far away you are, my love,
To steady my brain in this phantom show
That passes the nightly road above
And returns again below.
Has poised on each of its ledges
An erect small girl looking down at me;
White-night-gowned little chits I see,
And they peep at me over the edges
Of the leaves as though they would leap, should I call
Them down to my arms;
“But, child, you’re too small for me, too small
Your little charms.”
Some other will thresh you out!
And I see leaning from the shades
A lilac like a lady there, who braids
Her white mantilla about
Her face, and forward leans to catch the sight
Of a man’s face,
Gracefully sighing through the white
Flowery mantilla of lace.
Discreetly, all recklessly calls
In a low, shocking perfume, to know who has hailed
Her forth from the night: my strength has failed
In her voice, my weak heart falls:
Oh, and see the laburnum shimmering
Her draperies down,
As if she would slip the gold, and glimmering
White, stand naked of gown.
. . . . . .
The pageant of flowery trees above
The street pale-passionate goes,
And back again down the pavement, Love
In a lesser pageant flows.
They pass in a half embrace
Of linkèd bodies, and they talk
With dark face leaning to face.
Along this haunted road,
Be whom you will, my darling, I shall
Keep with you the troth I trowed.