Featured Poem: After Many Days by D.H. Lawrence

It's Monday morning once more, which can only mean that it's time to start your week off right with another Featured Poem selection here on The Reader Online. This week we're showcasing a choice from D.H. Lawrence - although better known as a novelist, Lawrence composed almost 800 poems and belonged to the Georgian and, later, the modernist movements. Lawrence took great care, especially with his later works, ensuring that every word within the poem was carefully worked upon and stood for something. He also believed that all poems should express personal sentiment and that a sense of spontaneity was vital to any of his works.

Why not delve into this poem to begin your Monday?

After Many Days

I wonder if with you, as it is with me,
If under your slipping words, that easily flow
About you as a garment, easily,
Your violent heart beats to and fro!

Long have I waited, never once confessed,
Even to myself, how bitter the separation;
Now, being come again, how make the best
Reparation?

If I could cast this clothing off from me,
If I could lift my naked self to you,
Or if only you would repulse me, a wound would be
Good; it would let the ache come through.

But that you hold me still so kindly cold
Aloof my floating heart will not allow;
Yea, but I loathe you that you should withhold
Your pleasure now.

D.H. Lawrence