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

10. Dreams Old and Nascent

Old

I HAVE opened the window to warm my hands on the sill

Where the sunlight soaks in the stone: the afternoon

Is full of dreams, my love, the boys are all still

In a wistful dream of Lorna Doone.

The clink of the shunting engines is sharp and fine,

Like savage music striking far off, and there

On the great, uplifted blue palace, lights stir and shine

Where the glass is domed in the blue, soft air.

There lies the world, my darling, full of wonder and wistfulness and strange

Recognition and greetings of half-acquaint things, as I greet the cloud

Of blue palace aloft there, among misty indefinite dreams that range

At the back of my life’s horizon, where the dreamings of past lives crowd.

Over the nearness of Norwood Hill, through the mellow veil

Of the afternoon glows to me the old romance of David and Dora,

With the old, sweet, soothing tears, and laughter that shakes the sail

Of the ship of the soul over seas where dreamed dreams lure the unoceaned explorer.

All the bygone, hushèd years

Streaming back where the mist distils

Into forgetfulness: soft-sailing waters where fears

No longer shake, where the silk sail fills

With an unfelt breeze that ebbs over the seas, where the storm

Of living has passed, on and on

Through the coloured iridescence that swims in the warm

Wake of the tumult now spent and gone,

Drifts my boat, wistfully lapsing after

The mists of vanishing tears and the echo of laughter.