SUBMERGENCE by D. H. Lawrence: Summary, Meaning & Analysis
A grieving speaker strolls through a bustling street, momentarily distracted from their sorrow by the crowd around them.
The poem
WHEN along the pavement, Palpitating flames of life, People flicker round me, I forget my bereavement, The gap in the great constellation, The place where a star used to be. Nay, though the pole-star Is blown out like a candle, And all the heavens are wandering in disarray, Yet when pleiads of people are Deployed around me, and I see The street's long outstretched Milky Way, When people flicker down the pavement, I forget my bereavement.
A grieving speaker strolls through a bustling street, momentarily distracted from their sorrow by the crowd around them. The poem employs star imagery to convey the overwhelming nature of their grief — akin to a star disappearing from the sky — yet the vibrant, flickering presence of strangers provides a fleeting respite. It's a brief, heartfelt reflection on how the outside world can offer us a moment of relief from the pain we bear within.
Line-by-line
WHEN along the pavement, / Palpitating flames of life,
Nay, though the pole-star / Is blown out like a candle,
When people flicker down the pavement, / I forget my bereavement.
Tone & mood
The tone is soft and gentle instead of dramatic. Lawrence doesn’t scream or lash out — he watches quietly, almost with gratitude. There’s a delicate awe in how the crowd transforms into a galaxy, and a sincere acknowledgment that the relief is simply forgetting, not true healing. The poem feels like a breath held and then gradually released.
Symbols & metaphors
- The pole-star — The pole-star is the unchanging navigational point in the night sky — the one star that remains still. Here, it symbolizes the person who has passed away: the one constant around which the speaker has oriented their life. Its disappearance means complete disorientation, not just sorrow.
- The gap in the great constellation — A constellation missing a star is still recognizable, yet it feels fundamentally altered. This image illustrates how grief transforms our reality—life goes on, but there's a noticeable void that remains unfilled.
- Flickering people / flames of life — The crowd is likened to flames and stars—both sources of light and both in motion. They symbolize the relentless, indifferent energy of the living world, into which the speaker can momentarily dive to find solace.
- The Milky Way / Pleiades — By mapping star clusters onto the street and its crowd, Lawrence brings the cosmic and the everyday closer together. The universe that carries the speaker's grief also encompasses this vibrant human life — and for a moment, they can blend.
Historical context
Lawrence penned many of his grief poems following his mother Lydia's death in December 1910, a loss he called the defining wound of his early life. His collection *Look! We Have Come Through!* (1917) and the earlier *Amores* (1916) both feature poems that explore grief and the quest for renewal. "Submergence" fits perfectly into this theme. Lawrence was also significantly inspired by Walt Whitman's belief that crowds and the physical world could offer spiritual healing — viewing the street as a sort of secular church. Between 1910 and 1916, urban life in England was rapidly evolving, and the image of a bustling pavement filled with strangers held a distinct modern significance: anonymous, electric, and oddly comforting to someone who felt completely isolated.
FAQ
Lawrence doesn't specify who the person is, but the imagery — particularly the *pole-star* being extinguished — suggests someone who served as the speaker's constant source of love and guidance. Scholars of Lawrence frequently associate poems like this with the death of his mother, Lydia Lawrence, in 1910. However, the poem can also be interpreted as a reaction to any significant personal loss.
To submerge means to go under — to sink beneath a surface. In this context, the speaker is immersing themselves in the crowd, allowing the mass of people to wash over them and temporarily drown out their grief. It’s not exactly an escape; it’s more akin to holding your breath underwater for a brief moment of peace.
By using familiar terms like stars, constellations, and the Milky Way to describe both the lost individual and the living crowd, Lawrence implies that they share the same universe. The dead star and the living stars are woven into a single grand design. This approach allows grief to feel universal while still offering a sense of hope.
The repetition reflects the cyclical nature of grief. You experience a brief moment of forgetting, only to find yourself back at the start — the sorrow remains. The loop in the poem's structure *is* its main point: relief is genuine, but it doesn’t stick around, and that’s perfectly fine.
*Palpitating* refers to a rapid throbbing or beating, much like a heart. Lawrence employs this term to convey a physical pulse in the crowd — these aren't merely individuals moving about; they embody a visceral, living presence. That sense of aliveness is precisely what the grieving speaker seeks to experience in their surroundings.
It feels more like acute grief than clinical depression. The speaker is still engaged with the world — they see the crowd as beautiful and uplifting. The poem doesn't convey numbness or complete withdrawal; instead, it portrays someone who is in pain but still open to the life surrounding them.
The poem consists of three stanzas: two with six lines each and a final couplet. It doesn't adhere to a strict rhyme scheme or meter — instead, Lawrence employs free verse, sprinkling in some near-rhymes (such as *life/bereavement* and *be/Way*). This loose structure seems intentional: grief doesn't follow tidy patterns, and this poem mirrors that unpredictability.
Without the pole-star as a fixed reference point, all the other stars seem to lose their orientation—they appear to drift. This serves as a metaphor for how the speaker's entire inner world has been thrown into chaos by the loss. When your anchor disappears, everything feels adrift.