Wild Things in Captivity

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.

--D.H. Lawrence

I suppose that since Mr. Lawrence knew that his jailers were obsessed with sex, they might be enticed into freeing him by the promise that sex would be sensational if Mr. Lawrence and the others of his kind were set free. Sex is not the best thing about freedom, or grace.