Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930). New Poems. 1916.

33. Seven Seals

SINCE this is the last night I keep you home,

Come, I will consecrate you for the journey.

Rather I had you would not go. Nay come,

I will not again reproach you. Lie back

And let me love you a long time ere you go.

For you are sullen-hearted still, and lack

The will to love me. But even so

I will set a seal upon you from my lip,

Will set a guard of honour at each door,

Seal up each channel out of which might slip

Your love for me.

I kiss your mouth. Ah, love,

Could I but seal its ruddy, shining spring

Of passion, parch it up, destroy, remove

Its softly-stirring crimson welling-up

Of kisses! Oh, help me, God! Here at the source

I’d lie for ever drinking and drawing in

Your fountains, as heaven drinks from out their course

The floods.

I close your ears with kisses

And seal your nostrils; and round your neck you’ll wear—

Nay, let me work—a delicate chain of kisses.

Like beads they go around, and not one misses

To touch its fellow on either side.

And there

Full mid-between the champaign of your breast

I place a great and burning seal of love

Like a dark rose, a mystery of rest

On the slow bubbling of your rhythmic heart.

Nay, I persist, and very faith shall keep

You integral to me. Each door, each mystic port

Of egress from you I will seal and steep

In perfect chrism.

Now it is done. The mort

Will sound in heaven before it is undone.

But let me finish what I have begun

And shirt you now invulnerable in the mail

Of iron kisses, kisses linked like steel.

Put greaves upon your thighs and knees, and frail

Webbing of steel on your feet. So you shall feel

Ensheathed invulnerable with me, with seven

Great seals upon your outgoings, and woven

Chain of my mystic will wrapped perfectly

Upon you, wrapped in indomitable me.