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

48. A Spiritual Woman

CLOSE your eyes, my love, let me make you blind;

They have taught you to see

Only a mean arithmetic on the face of things,

A cunning algebra in the faces of men,

And God like geometry

Completing his circles, and working cleverly.

I’ll kiss you over the eyes till I kiss you blind;

If I can—if any one could.

Then perhaps in the dark you’ll have got what you want to find.

You’ve discovered so many bits, with your clever eyes,

And I’m a kaleidoscope

That you shake and shake, and yet it won’t come to your mind.

Now stop carping at me.—But God, how I hate you!

Do you fear I shall swindle you?

Do you think if you take me as I am, that that will abate you

Somehow?—so sad, so intrinsic, so spiritual, yet so cautious, you

Must have me all in your will and your consciousness—

I hate you.