T. R. Smith, comp. Poetica Erotica: Rare and Curious Amatory Verse. 1921–22.
Excursion
By D. H. Lawrence (1885–1930)(From Amores, 1916) 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 | 5 |
| 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 | 10 |
| 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; | 15 |
| 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 | 20 |
| 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. | 25 |
| 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 | 30 |
| 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. | 35 |
| 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 | 40 |
| Of my body, and loose the burning flood | |
| That would leap to you from my heart? | |