E-text prepared by Lewis Jones D. H. Lawrence (1916) _Amores_ AMORES Poems by D. H. LAWRENCE New York B. W. Huebsch 1916 Copyright, 1916, by D. H. Lawrence TO OTTOLINE MORRELL IN TRIBUTE TO HER NOBLE AND INDEPENDENT SYMPATHY AND HER GENEROUS UNDERSTANDING THESE POEMS ARE GRATEFULLY DEDICATED CONTENTS Tease The Wild Common Study Discord in Childhood Virgin Youth Monologue of a Mother In a Boat Week-night Service Irony Dreams Old Dreams Nascent A Winter's Tale Epilogue A Baby Running Barefoot Discipline Scent of Irises The Prophet Last Words to Miriam Mystery Patience Ballad of Another Ophelia Restlessness A Baby Asleep After Pain Anxiety The Punisher The End The Bride The Virgin Mother At the Window Drunk Sorrow Dolor of Autumn The Inheritance Silence Listening Brooding Grief Lotus Hurt by the Cold Malade Liaison Troth with the Dead Dissolute Submergence The Enkindled Spring Reproach The Hands of the Betrothed Excursion Perfidy A Spiritual Woman Mating A Love Song Brother and Sister After Many Days Blue Snap-Dragon A Passing Bell In Trouble and Shame Elegy Grey Evening Firelight and Nightfall The Mystic Blue AMORES TEASE I WILL give you all my keys, You shall be my chatelaine, You shall enter as you please, As you please shall go again. When I hear you jingling through All the chambers of my soul, How I sit and laugh at you In your vain housekeeping role. Jealous of the smallest cover, Angry at the simplest door; Well, you anxious, inquisitive lover, Are you pleased with what's in store? You have fingered all my treasures, Have you not, most curiously, Handled all my tools and measures And masculine machinery? Over every single beauty You have had your little rapture; You have slain, as was your duty, Every sin-mouse you could capture. Still you are not satisfied, Still you tremble faint reproach; Challenge me I keep aside Secrets that you may not broach. Maybe yes, and maybe no, Maybe there _are_ secret places, Altars barbarous below, Elsewhere halls of high disgraces. Maybe yes, and maybe no, You may have it as you please, Since I choose to keep you so, Suppliant on your curious knees. THE WILD COMMON THE quick sparks on the gorse bushes are leaping, Little jets of sunlight-texture imitating flame; Above them, exultant, the pee-wits are sweeping: They are lords of the desolate wastes of sadness their screamings proclaim. Rabbits, handfuls of brown earth, lie Low-rounded on the mournful grass they have bitten down to the quick. Are they asleep?--Are they alive?--Now see, when I Move my arms the hill bursts and heaves under their spurting kick.