D. H. Lawrence doc Bay: A Book of Poems

A Review in Hyde Park 1913.The Crowd Watches.WHERE the trees rise like cliffs, proud andblue-tinted in the distance,Between the cliffs of the trees, on the greygreen parkRests a still line of soldiers, red motionless range ofguardsSmouldering with darkened busbies beneath the bayonets' slant rain.Colossal in nearness a blue police sits still on his horseGuarding the path; his hand relaxed at his thigh,And skyward his face is immobile, eyelids aslantIn tedium, and mouth relaxed as if smiling—ineffabletedium!So! So! Gaily a general canters across the space,With white plumes blinking under the evening greysky.And suddenly, as if the ground movedThe red range heaves in slow, magnetic reply.4EVOLUTIONS OF SOLDIERSThe red range heaves and compulsory sways, ah see!in the flush of a marchSoftly-impulsive advancing as water towards a weirfrom the archOf shadow emerging as blood emerges from inwardshades of our nightEncroaching towards a crisis, a meeting, a spasm andthrob of delight.The wave of soldiers, the coming wave, the throbbingred breast of approachUpon us; dark eyes as here beneath the busbies glittering, dark threats that broachOur beached vessel; darkened rencontre inhuman, andclosed warm lips, and darkMouth-hair of soldiers passing above us, over the wreckof our bark.And so, it is ebb-time, they turn, the eyes beneath thebusbies are gone.But the blood has suspended its timbre, the heart fromout of oblivionKnows but the retreat of the burning shoulders, thered-swift waves of the sweetFire horizontal declining and ebbing, the twilit ebb ofretreat.5THE LITTLE TOWN AT EVENINGTHE chime of the bells, and the church clockstriking eightSolemnly and distinctly cries down the babelof children still playing in the hay.The church draws nearer upon us, gentle and greatIn shadow, covering us up with her grey.Like drowsy children the houses fall asleepUnder the fleece of shadow, as in betweenTall and dark the church moves, anxious to keepTheir sleeping, cover them soft unseen.