POETRY REVIEEW D H LAWRENCE AT THE WINDOW

A common theme for Lawrence in his verse is the town as a living, breathing being or as a colony of interactive entities. Here, as twilight descends on a blustery day, buildings seem to talk to one anther, and street lights seem too leak and bleed their illumination.

Trees seem animated, and laugh at some private joke rather than just being blown around by an Autumnal breeze.

Houses seem to draw their own curtains rather than the people inside them drawing them closed. Leaves seem to whisper some secret as they swirl around and the poet is unable to capture what is said. He feels excluded from the activity he observes, let out of the joke and the conversation. He feels trapped for being inside the house, and alienated, ignored by the vibrant displays he sees through the window.

A simple poem, with just nine lines and three stanzas with a William Blake-like air of mysticism to it. Houses further down the street are described as tombstones, with its people trapped within striking Lawrence as somehow dead to him for all he knows of them and it therefore implies that he is just as dead and distant to them. The window becomes a metaphor for the limited view we have on life, as what is beyond our view is the unknown World beyond our comprehension too.

Arthur Chappell

Lawrence, poem, poetry, window, view, pastoral. nature, stanzas, lines, Arthur, Chappell,