D. H.

Lawrence
Author(s): Harriet Monroe
Source: Poetry, Vol. 36, No. 2 (May, 1930), pp. 90-96
Published by: Poetry Foundation
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POETRY:

A Magazine

of Verse

COMMENT
D.

H.

LAWRENCE

death ofD. H. Lawrence (David Herbert, those

familiarinitialsstand for,and thedate and placewere
March 3rd, at Vence, near Nice)-the death of D. H.
Lawrence seemedsuddenand shocking,thoughever since
theworld firstheard of him everyonehas known thathe
was frail,tuberculous,and likely to drop earthwardat
any moment. Surviving by a miracle frommonth to
month and year to year,he seemedsomehowone of those
mortals who conquer thebitter threatsofmortalityand
fates.We had nowarn
wrest long lifefromthe forgetful
ing,we heard thatbewas hoping to returntoNewMexico
-and then,all of a sudden,came thenews thathe had
journeyedto a more distant countryand would visit us
nomore. In his forty-fifth
year theaccountwas closed.
The news carriedme back to thebeginningof POETRY,
and to thegroupof eightpoemswhich opened forus the
fatefulyear I914. It remindedme also that of all our
numerouscorrespondents,famousand obscure,none has
more revealing,than
more interesting,
ever sentus letters
missives to theeditor
his. Reading over thesetwenty-one
whom he "looked on as a friend,"I wish I might quote
them in exienso,ahead of the inevitableLife and Letters
which must come in a few years. I arrange them in
order,and copy now and thena sentenceor
chronological
a paragraph.

THE

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D. H. Lawrence
InMay, I914, he sent fromtheGulf of Spezia, where
Shelley died, fantasticthanks forourmodest check:
You putme a finebig batch in theJanuaryissue,andwhen I got your
check I gasped, seeingitwas inpaymentofmere verse. I felt
my fortune
was made at a stroke.

Two months later,on thevery day when theCentral

Powerswere declaringwar, he tellsof a dinnerwithMiss
Lowell andMr. Aldington, and adds:
We had somepoetry. But-dear God!-when I see all theunderstand
ingand suffering
and thepure intelligence
necessaryforthesimpleper
ceivingof poetry, thenI know it's an almosthopelessbusiness to pub
lish thestuffat all. Itmust stand by, and wait andwait.

The next letter,inmid-November,touchestheuniversal

world topic,a propos of POETRY'S
War Number:
The war isdreadful. It is thebusinessof theartist to followithome to
theheartof the individualfighter,
not to talk inarmiesand nations and
numbers,but to trackithome-home.

Which iswhat thewar novelistsand poetshave beendoing

ever since.
Ten months later thewar was trackinghim home. On
SeptemberiSth, 19I5, hewrites:
This is therealwinterof thespiritinEngland. We are just preparing
tocome to fastgripswith thewar. At lastwe are going togive ourselves
up to it,and everything
elsewe are lettinggo. I thought
we shouldnever
come to this,but we are. And thewar will go on fora very long time.
I knew itwhen I watched theZeppelin theotherevening,gleaminglike
a new sign in theheavens, a new supremecelestialbody ... which had
assumed theheavens as itsown.
God knowsnowwhat theendwill be. Only I feelthateven ifwe are
all going tobe rusheddown toextinction
onemust holdup theotherliving
truth-of rightand pure reality,the realityof the clear eternalspirit.

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POETRY:

A Magazine

of Verse

One must speak forlifeand growth,amid all thismass ofdestructionand

disintegration.

InOctober of I9I5 he is lookingacross thesea:

Probably inamonth's timeI shallbe inNew York. I hope I can come
toChicago to see you all. I must seeAmerica. Here theautumnof all
lifehas set in, the fall.We are hardlymore thanghosts inthehaze, we
who stand apart fromthefluxof death. I thinkone can feelhope there.
I thinkthat therethelifecomesup fromtheroots,crudebut vital. Here
thewhole treeof lifeis dying. It is likebeingdead-the underworld. I
must seeAmerica. I believe it is beginning,not ending.

But Feb. ist, I9I9, he is still longinginvain for

America
-"it isnot indecision,
but damnable circumstance
which
preventsmy coming." And besides, the flukeeps him in
bed in hisDerbyshirecottage-"a voyage autourde ma
chambrefinishes
me." Not until thesummerof I922 does
he set footin theseUnited States, and thequest of health
carrieshim swiftlyacross the continenttoNew Mexico.
In October he sends some impressionsof America from
Taos:
What do I find? God knows. No, not freedom-but freedomis an
illusionanyhow,as you suggest. I finda tensionlike a stretchedbow,
whichmight snap but probablywon't-something a bit hard to bear.
"Stiff-neckedand uncircumcisedgeneration"-that inhumanresistance
to thedivinity-would be perhaps superhumanandfourth-dimensional.
But always resistance.Remindsme of thegreat cries in theOld Testa
ment: "How longwill ye hardenyourheartsagainstme?" But who is
Jehovahin thiscase, I don't know. An Almighty,however,not a Dove;
a Thunderbolt,not a Logos.

In September, I923, while I was abroad, he was in

Chicago fora day-"a queer big citywith a sortof palpi
tation I couldn't quite understand"-and the following
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D. H. Lawrence
March he and hiswife and theirfriend
Miss Brett spenta
day withme in the"queer big city" and had dinnerwith
a fewpoets. "I shall never forgetthat afternoon,"he
wrote afterwardsfromTaos, "that lakewith a stripeof
snow likea skunk'snose." And amuch laterletterrefers
again to
thatday inChicago, and the iceon theshoresof the lake,which I shall
never forget,so wild and American still,with thatwild forestof a city
behind. Somethingqueer and terrifying
about Chicago, one of the
strange"centres" of theearth,more so thanNew York.

ThatMarch day inChicago in I924was my onlychance

to verifyby talk and the touchof eyes and hands the
impressions
gained througha desultorycorrespondence
of
ten years. I founda man uncannilyactive in spite of
slightfigureand frailhealth;with a rovingobservanteye,
prehensilehands, a body alertand ready to leap likea cat,
and a mind as tautas a steel spring. One feltan urge for
lifeinhis company; there
was nothingsedativeor soothing
about this faun-likecreaturewho wore no conventional
veils over a spirit that darted thisway and that to its
discoveries. Nothing remindedone of his physicalweak
ness; on the contraryhe seemed lithe and extra-fitfor
dart and recoil-one had to sharpenone's paces to keep
up with him. He lookedlikehis pictures-the small face,
with its thickreddishhair and pointed beard,
triangular
the narrow-chestedthin-flankedbody, the legs that
seemed to clear thegroundevenwhen theyrested. The
contrastbetweenhis lithenessand the solidwell-rounded
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POETRY:

A Magazine

of Verse

stabilityof his guardianwifewas a lesson in themystery

of affinities.
They went on to Taos, and the Del Monte Ranch
seventeenmiles beyond it, "a little ranchofmy wife's,
paid forby thems. of Sons and Lovers." Afterwardsto
Mexico forthesecond time,and thenback to various re
treatsnear theMediterranean. From Florence, inMarch
I928, he wrote the last letterI shall ever receive from
him. "I hopewe shall go back toNew Mexico some time
thisyear," it said, "and see you again inChicago. I feel
it's time I connectedup again with theWest."
But the letterwas chieflyabout the book which has
stirredup somuch controversyof late,Lady Chatterley's
Lover.

It went

on:

Meanwhile I'm busy here printingmy new novel inFlorence-Iooo

copies,ofwhich 500 forAmerica. It is a nice and tenderphallicnovel
not a sex novel in theordinarysense of theword. I don't know how
much you sympathizewithmy work-perhaps notmuch. But anyhow
you know it isquite sincere,and that I sincerelybelieve in restoringthe
other, thephallic consciousness,intoour lives:because it is thesourceof
all real beauty, and all real gentleness. And thoseare the two things,
tendernessand beauty,which will save us fromhorrors. And I think
with POETRYyou've worked for those two things. And inmy novel I
work forthemdirectly,and direct fromthephallic consciousness,
which,
you understand, is not the cerebral sex-consciousness,but something
reallydeeper,and the rootof poetry,livedor sung.

Rereading this letterafter these two years, I am re

minded of the string of scathing adjectives hurled
against its author by Senator Reed Smoot of Utah in
the course of his noble effortto protectour morals by
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D. H. Lawrence
censorship. The letter is proof thatLawrence also, in
hisway, was protectingourmorals; and, as he thought,
froma more devastatingdisintegrationthan anything
Senator Smoot anathematized; the disintegration
which
comes froman invertedsex-consciousnessfeedingupon
pornographicpoisons,hissing lewdwhispers,
divertedby
leers. Lawrence's preoccupation
with sexwas honestand
open; therewas no pornographyin it. His attitude, in
deed,was worshipful;his attack on sex taboos thatof a
crusader. As Henry Seidel Canby said in the Saturday
ReviewofMarch 25th:
JohnBunyan and D. H. Lawrence would have respectedeach other
and arguedmagnificently,
neither listeningto a word. Both, in a re
strictedsense,werePuritans. ... AllLawrence'sbookswerewrittento im
prove civilizedman, who was visibly losing thosepowerswhich come
fromthedepthsof emotionalvirility..
He knew justwhat was wrong,and in thisagain he resembledall the
greatPuritans. It was our sex thatwas decaying,infectedby theethics
ofVictorianism,smotheredby hypocrisy,made dull and apathetic by
mechanical living. The sexual emotions,as psychologistshad recently
discovered and artistshad always known,were inseparablyrelated to
creativeactivity. Dull them,and you dull theman orwoman. Warp
them intomechanical responses,and you turncivilizationmechanical
and prepare foritsdeath. ...
Thus his books became as much propaganda as Pilgrim's Progress.

And perhaps it is too early, in spiteofSenator Smoot, to

pronounceupon the finalvalue of thatpropaganda.
I have left
myselflittlespace fordiscussionofLawrence's
rank as a poet; indeed,thiswould be repetition,coming
so soon aftermy February reviewof his CollectedPoems.
He

was,

as I said

then, a poet of uncertain

inspiration,

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POETRY:

A Magazine

of Verse

and a carelessand casual technician.But hewrote a few

poems too poignant to be forgotten,too beautiful to
perish. And that, forany poet, is a sufficient
claim to a
footingin someParnassian fieldwith other immortals.
H. M.

REVIEWS
THE

TESTAMENT

OF

ROBERT

BRIDGES

The Testamentof Beauty, by Robert Bridges. Oxford

UniversityPress.
The Poet Laureate's longpoem,publishedon his eighty
fifthbirthday,at once became a public event. Against
an adverse prejudice aroused by unreservedpraise both
inEngland andAmerica,must be setone's respectforthe
poem's dignity, its reservesof profoundreflection,and
itspatent sincerityinworkingout a personalphilosophy.
Poems of thistypeare rare today. Into thisone Bridges,
whose previouswork has been in shorterlyricand dra
matic forms,has put the thoughtof a lifetime. For his
mode of handlinghismaterial he has gone-as Herbert
Read has pointedout in themost discriminating
reviewI
have seen-not toDante but to Lucretius. Mr. Read,
using a suggestionfromEliot, has shown how far this
method is impracticableinmodern poetry. It is dis
cursive,or descriptive,
method, as against the intuitive,
or allegorical. It discards,at theoutset, the intenseand
visual beauty, immediate in its unreflectiveappeal, by

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