by D. H. Lawrence
Wild things in captivity
while they keep their own wild purity
won't breed, they mope, they die.
All men are in captivity,
active with captive activity,
and the best won't breed, though they don't know why.
The great cage of our domesticity
kills sex in a man, the simplicity
of desire is distorted and twisted awry.
And so, with bitter perversity,
gritting against the great adversity,
the young ones copulate, hate it, and want to cry.
Sex is a state of grace.
In a cage it can't take place.
Break the cage then, start in and try.
(I was profoundly touched by this poem many years ago, but had forgotten the author and title. A friend of mine found it for me last night, as its words are especially resonant in my life now. It seemed far too cliched to think it had been written by Lawrence, but it was.)
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