Windows: Two Poems By D. H. Lawrence

At the Window

By D. H. Lawrence

The pine-trees bend to listen to the autumn wind as it mutters

Something which sets the black poplars ashake with hysterical laughter;

While slowly the house of day is closing its eastern shutters.

Further down the valley the clustered tombstones recede,

Winding about their dimness the mist’s grey cerements, after

The street lamps in the darkness have suddenly started to bleed.

The leaves fly over the window and utter a word as they pass

To the face that leans from the darkness, intent, with two dark-filled eyes

That watch for ever earnestly from behind the window glass.

From a College Window 

By D. H. Lawrence

The glimmer of the limes, sun-heavy, sleeping,  

  Goes trembling past me up the College wall.  

Below, the lawn, in soft blue shade is keeping,  

  The daisy-froth quiescent, softly in thrall.  

  

Beyond the leaves that overhang the street,

  Along the flagged, clean pavement summer-white,  

Passes the world with shadows at their feet  

  Going left and right.  

  

Remote, although I hear the beggar’s cough,  

  See the woman’s twinkling fingers tend him a coin,

I sit absolved, assured I am better off  

  Beyond a world I never want to join.  

I've always been fascinated by the symbolism of windows.  A window is a spiritual entrance through which your soul can travel. If you choose to let it go, your soul can break the glass boundaries created by the window and travel into the greater world; soaking in the sounds, the smells, the sights. Windows symbolize our senses.  Our senses are like windows to our minds and our souls that allow both the negative and positive of the world to enter, making its impression on us thus allowing bright ideas to flourish or dull and dismal thoughts to suppress our potentials.

The soul has a window, as does the mind. The soul is like an enclosed space of our inner world, where our experiences, ideas, thoughts, hopes and dreams are stored and from whence they seek to find a window into the outer world going free, breaking forth and taking flight into the vast expanse of achievements.

A window is a portal; allowing your thoughts to roam around freely. It symbolizes freedom, a passage to and from a space into the vast expanse of the world and the passage, where light, air, sounds, knowledge, objects etc., may pass through, coming and going.  However, a window creates boundaries, as your soul can only travel as far as your eyes can see. You cannot move right, or left; you move in an unwavering straight line. As you gaze out the window, you watch life go by, failing to contribute any involvement.  It is a passive response.   Looking out a window is a means of search for something.  It signifies the need to find something missing in your life or a solution to a problem.

It is said that "the eyes are the windows to the soul," meaning when others engage us our facial expressions, beginning with our eye movements and body language give others a momentary glimpse [a window, an opening] to see into our heart and soul, or our mind and it's thinking.