The time and light in GLOIRE DE DIJON poem.

The poem is about a voice that watches a lady while she bathes. SHE seems to be the object of the poem, the object of observation. SHE seems to bathe slowly, she is taking her time. In the first stanza she only loses prominence when the voice suddenly pays attention to the sunlight, the light will become now a protagonist of the poem and so will be the time.

The first line in the poem settles the scene “in the morning”. If we consider the morning as a symbol, it may symbolize purity or a promise. But more important, it is a specific time of the day with a particular light. For Monet, the effects of light on a subject (the lady) became as important as the object itself. Moreover, the sun is the sun is the quintessencial light source  and the different times of the day are the most explicit representation of time in nature. The morning, being the first moment in the day after the darkness of night, may symbolize youth. It can also be seen that, in the next lines sun will continue to appear.

In the third line, the author introduces a window, we could think of the window as the symbol of freedom but also, it is the glass through which the sunlight enters, and, also the glass through which we watch her.

The sunlight, or sunbeams catch her. Along the first three lines, SHE appears to be untouchable, divine, ungraspable. But sunlight, or time, catches her this means that time will make changes on her, just as on everyone else. As it did with Rouen Cathedral.

And here we are in the immediate present when the sunbeams glisten white in her shoulders (interesting to notice that colour white can also symbolize light), while down her sides the mellow golden shadow glows […] times in this light form goes down her body, another witness to the ravages of time.

Another thing to notice is the presence of yellow a colour that, so far is not explicitly presented but though its simile: Golden.

[…] her swung breasts sway like full-blown yellow Gloire de Dijon roses. The climax of youth, the full-blown roses, are followed by decay, decrepitude, old age symbolized by colour yellow.

Here, the scene seems to stop for a minute, we are settled in this supreme Now and then, the bathe continues. She drips herself with water […] But now her once full-blown body crumples up “Like wet and falling roses […]”, giving a sense of sudden haste, not fixity, immediacy, just as Lawrence himself expresses on his “Introduction.”

And now the author, the voice, listens for the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals […] waiting for the next ravage of time. Until it glows as mellow as the glory roses. Leaving behind a sense of inconclusiveness.

Finally, the fact that the title of the poem refers to a type of flower, may introduce the idea of time, since, when we think of a flower, we do not think of past or future. Flowers, since they fade, they have just the moment. Flowers, because of their ephemeral nature, force us to live the present, and writing a poem about a flower means writing a poem on the present on its wind-like transit.

GLOIRE DE DIJON

D.H. LAWRENCE

When she rises in the morning

I linger to watch her;

She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window

And the sunbeams catch her

Glistening white on the shoulders.

While down her sides the mellow

Golden shadow glows as

She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts

Sway like full-blown yellow

Gloire de Dijon roses.

 

She drips herself with water, and her shoulders

Glisten as silver, they crumple up

Like wet and falling roses, and I listen

For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals.

In the window full of sunlight

Concentrates her golden shadow

Fold on fold, until it glows as

Mellow as the glory roses.