the autumn always
gets me badly – go south where
the cold doesn’t crouch
To J. M. Murry, from Del Monte Ranch, Questa, 3 October 1924
The country here is very lovely at the moment.
Aspens high on the mountains like a fleece of gold.
Ubi est ille Jason?
The scrub oak is dark red, and the wild birds are coming down to the desert.
It is time to go south, – Did I tell you my father died on Sept. 10th, the day before my birthday? –
The autumn always gets me badly, as it breaks into colours.
I want to go south, where there is no autumn, where the cold doesn’t crouch over one like a snow-leopard waiting to pounce.
The heart of the North is dead, and the fingers of cold are corpse fingers.
There is no more hope northwards, and the salt of its inspiration is the tingling of the viaticum on the tongue.
The Letters of D. H. Lawrence. Vol. 2, Edited by James T. Boulton. )Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962).
No Haiku For You 