Produced by Lewis Jones D.H. Lawrence (1919) _Bay: A Book of Poems_ Transcriber's Note: These poems were first published by the Beaumont Press in a limited edition. Facsimile page images from the original publication, including facsimile images of the original coloured illustrations by Anne Estelle Rice, are freely available from the Internet Archive. BAY . . A BOOK OF . . POEMS . . BY D: H: LAWRENCE To Cynthia Asquith CONTENTS GUARDS Where the trees rise like cliffs THE LITTLE TOWN AT EVENING The chime of the bells LAST HOURS The cool of an oak's unchequered shade TOWN London AFTER THE OPERA Down the stone stairs GOING BACK The night turns slowly round ON THE MARCH We are out on the open road BOMBARDMENT The town has opened to the sun WINTER-LULL Because of the silent snow THE ATTACK When we came out of the wood OBSEQUIAL ODE Surely you've trodden straight SHADES Shall I tell you, then, how it is?-- BREAD UPON THE WATERS So you are lost to me RUINATION The sun is bleeding its fires upon the mist RONDEAU The hours have tumbled their leaden sands TOMMIES IN THE TRAIN The sun shines WAR-BABY The child like mustard-seed NOSTALGIA The waning moon looks upward COLOPHON GUARDS! A Review in Hyde Park 1913. The Crowd Watches. WHERE the trees rise like cliffs, proud and blue-tinted in the distance, Between the cliffs of the trees, on the grey- green park Rests a still line of soldiers, red motionless range of guards Smouldering with darkened busbies beneath the bay- onets' slant rain. Colossal in nearness a blue police sits still on his horse Guarding the path; his hand relaxed at his thigh, And skyward his face is immobile, eyelids aslant In tedium, and mouth relaxed as if smiling--ineffable tedium! So! So! Gaily a general canters across the space, With white plumes blinking under the evening grey sky. And suddenly, as if the ground moved The red range heaves in slow, magnetic reply. EVOLUTIONS OF SOLDIERS The red range heaves and compulsory sways, ah see! in the flush of a march Softly-impulsive advancing as water towards a weir from the arch Of shadow emerging as blood emerges from inward shades of our night Encroaching towards a crisis, a meeting, a spasm and throb of delight. The wave of soldiers, the coming wave, the throbbing red breast of approach Upon us; dark eyes as here beneath the busbies glit- tering, dark threats that broach Our beached vessel; darkened rencontre inhuman, and closed warm lips, and dark Mouth-hair of soldiers passing above us, over the wreck of our bark. And so, it is ebb-time, they turn, the eyes beneath the busbies are gone. But the blood has suspended its timbre, the heart from out of oblivion Knows but the retreat of the burning shoulders, the red-swift waves of the sweet Fire horizontal declining and ebbing, the twilit ebb of retreat. THE LITTLE TOWN AT EVENING