D H Lawrence (1885-1930), an unpleasant man in many ways, was perhaps a greater poet than novelist. I read many of his novels before I ever kissed a girl, which seems absurd in retrospect. With some trepidation, I reread Women in Love a few years—and, to my surprise, I was impressed. https://richardswsmith.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/rereading-women-in-love-after-45-years-embarrassing-or-transcendent/  I picked out themes in the novel, including: death is supreme and ennobling, not to be tamed; mankind is a mess and the sooner it is replaced by something superior the better; we should live as flowers live. There was much in the book about blood, and in my memory the book seems almost fascist.

Lawrence’s poems were much simpler and mostly about nature. This morning I have read three poems by Lawrence about creatures, two about mosquitos and one about a mountain lion. His poems are almost closer to prose than poetry. But the four-line poem I’ve selected here is a poem that has been locked in my mind ever since I first read it decades ago. Self-pity is a terrible temptation but ultimately an awful curse.

Self-pity

I never saw a wild thing
sorry for itself.
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough
without ever having felt sorry for itself.