Week-night Service by D. H. Lawrence

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend June 25, 2016   Week-night Service   D. H. Lawrence

The five old bells Are hurrying and eagerly calling, Imploring, protesting They know, but clamorously falling Into gabbling incoherence, never resting, Like spattering showers from a bursten sky-rocket dropping In splashes of sound, endlessly, never stopping.   The silver moon That somebody has spun so high To settle the question, yes or no, has caught In the net of the night’s balloon, And sits with a smooth bland smile up there in the sky Smiling at naught, Unless the winking star that keeps her company Makes little jests at the bells’ insanity, As if he knew aught!   The patient Night Sits indifferent, hugged in her rags, She neither knows nor cares Why the old church sobs and brags; The light distresses he eyes, and tears Her old blue cloak, as she crouches and covers her face, Smiling, perhaps, if we knew it, at the bells’ loud clattering disgrace.   The wise old trees Drop their leaves with a faint, sharp hiss of contempt, While a car at the end of the street goes by with a laugh; As by degrees The poor bells cease, and the Night is exempt, And the stars can chaff The ironic moon at their ease, while the dim old church Is peopled with shadows and sounds and ghosts that lurch In its cenotaph.            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “Week-night Service” was published in Amores (B. W. Huebsch, 1916).   D. H. Lawrence was born in Nottinghamshire, England, on September 11, 1885. His numerous collections of poetry include Birds, Beasts and Flowers (Martin Secker, 1923) and Collected Poems (Martin Secker, 1932). Lawrence died in 1930. Poetry by Lawrence   The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence (Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1994) "Morning at the Window" by T. S. Eliot "A Jelly-Fish" by Marianne Moore "Of Many Worlds in This World" by Margaret Cavendish Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038