Whales Weep Not!

"Whales Weep Not!" Poem by D. H. Lawrence, 1932

They say the sea is cold, but the sea contains the hottest blood of all, and the wildest, the most urgent.

All the whales in the wider deeps, hot are they, as they urge on and on, and dive beneath the icebergs. The right whales, the sperm-whales, the hammer-heads, the killers there they blow, there they blow, hot wild white breath out of the sea!

And they rock, and they rock, through the sensual ageless ages on the depths of the seven seas, and through the salt they reel with drunk delight and in the tropics tremble they with love and roll with massive, strong desire, like gods. They shake the sea with thunder balderdash they pummel the sea with play.

And all the while men sit in trees and ponder: Whales weep not! And yet the whales, who weep not, have no need of tears, for they are lords of the sea, gods of the sea, and their hot blood pulses with a joy that men may never know.