The little pansies by the road have turned 
Away their purple faces and their gold, 
And evening has taken all the bees from the thyme, 
And all the scent is shed away by the cold. 

Against the hard and pale blue evening sky 
The mountain's new-dropped summer snow is clear 
Glistening in steadfast stillness: like transcendent 
Clean pain sending on us a chill down here. 

Chirst on the Cross! -- his beautiful young man's body 
Has fallen dead upon the nails, and hangs 
White and loose at last, with all the pain 
Drawn on his mouth, eyes broken at last by his pangs. 

And slowly down the mountain road, belated, 
A bullock wagon comes; so I am ashamed 
To gaze any more at the Christ, whom the mountain snows 
Whitely confront; I wait on the grass, am lamed. 

The breath of the bullock stains the hard, chill air, 
The band is across its brow, and it scarcely seems 
To draw the load, so still and slow it moves, 
While the driver on the shaft sits crouched in dreams. 

Surely about his sunburnt face is something 
That vexes me with wonder. He sits so still 
Here among all this silence, crouching forward, 
Dreaming and letting the bullock take its will. 

I stand aside on the grass to let them go; 
-- And Christ, I have met his accusing eyes again, 
The brown eyes black with misery and hate, that look 
Full in my own, and the torment starts again. 

One moment the hate leaps at me standing there, 
One moment I see the stillness of agony, 
Something frozen in the silence that dare not be 
Loosed, one moment the darkness frightens me. 

Then among the averted pansies, beneath the high 
White peaks of snow, at the foot of the sunken Christ 
I stand in a chill of anguish, trying to say 
The joy I bought was not too highly priced. 

But he has gone, motionless, hating me, 
Living as the mountains do, because they are strong, 
With a pale, dead Christ on the crucifix of his heart, 
And breathing the frozen memory of his wrong. 

Still in his nostrils the frozen breath of despair, 
And heart like a cross that bears dead agony 
Of naked love, clenched in his fists the shame, 
And in his belly the smouldering hate of me. 

And I, as I stand in the cold, averted flowers, 
Feel the shame-wounds in his hands pierce through my own, 
And breathe despair that turns my lungs to stone 
And know the dead Christ weighing on my bone. 

Added: Mar 18 2005 | Viewed: 692 times | Comments (0)

Poet: D.H. Lawrence
Poem: Meeting Among the Mountains

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