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.
Satyr and Wolves by D. H. Lawrence.
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A Holy Family by D.H. Lawrence
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Close up Kiss by D.H. Lawrence
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Untitled painting by D.H. Lawrence
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David Herbert Lawrence (1885 – 1930) was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter. His collected works represent, among other things, an extended reflection upon the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization. Some of the issues Lawrence explores are sexuality, emotional health, vitality, spontaneity, and instinct. Lawrence’s opinions earned him many enemies and he endured official persecution, censorship, and misrepresentation of his creative work throughout the second half of his life, much of which he spent in a voluntary exile he called his “savage pilgrimage”. At the time of his death, his public reputation was that of a pornographer who had wasted his considerable talents. E. M. Forster, in an obituary notice, challenged this widely held view, describing him as “the greatest imaginative novelist of our generation.” In Lawrence’s last years, painting became one of his main forms of expression. A 1929 exhibition at the Warren Gallery in London’s Mayfair was extremely controversial. After a complaint from a visitor of the exhibition, the police seized 13 of the 25 paintings which later were returned to the artist.
[bio adapted from Wikipedia and from Eric Chaim Kline]Poem and images are in the public domain.
Most recent scientific inquiries are saying that this no longer is true. Animals do seem to have a sense of feeing sorry. It is only in the formative stages, but feelings we thought before that animals and birds and reptiles and such did not feel, we now find out that they do feel. Not maybe to the intensity that we do, but it seems that it does happen.
Blessings
charlie
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