Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930). Amores. 1916.

46. Excursion

I WONDER, can the night go by;

Can this shot arrow of travel fly

Shaft-golden with light, sheer into the sky

Of a dawned to-morrow,

Without ever sleep delivering us

From each other, or loosing the dolorous

Unfruitful sorrow!

What is it then that you can see

That at the window endlessly

You watch the red sparks whirl and flee

And the night look through?

Your presence peering lonelily there

Oppresses me so, I can hardly bear

To share the train with you.

You hurt my heart-beats’ privacy;

I wish I could put you away from me;

I suffocate in this intimacy,

For all that I love you;

How I have longed for this night in the train,

Yet now every fibre of me cries in pain

To God to remove you.

But surely my soul’s best dream is still

That one night pouring down shall swill

Us away in an utter sleep, until

We are one, smooth-rounded.

Yet closely bitten in to me

Is this armour of stiff reluctancy

That keeps me impounded.

So, dear love, when another night

Pours on us, lift your fingers white

And strip me naked, touch me light,

Light, light all over.

For I ache most earnestly for your touch,

Yet I cannot move, however much

I would be your lover.

Night after night with a blemish of day

Unblown and unblossomed has withered away;

Come another night, come a new night, say

Will you pluck me apart?

Will you open the amorous, aching bud

Of my body, and loose the burning flood

That would leap to you from my heart?