Was it widthways or lengthways, a quarrel with the equator? Did the rawness of the inside sparkle?

Only this is true: there was an arm on one side and a hand on the other, a thought on one side and a hush on the other.

And a luminous tear carried on the back of a beetle went backwards and forwards from one side to the other.

New at the time, that is - because one of the other striking things about Lawrence's poetry is how fertile a growth point it became for later writers - Ted Hughes, especially. Not only did Hughes learn a great deal from Lawrence's way of seeing, he also adapted his long lines, and note-taking style (in Moortown Diary, especially), and so licensed a style that might be described as the opposite of Larkin's other-English tradition. Its rawness can sometimes be too bloody for its own good, its formal freedom can easily become slack, its relentless attention to things-in-themselves can hinder the philosophic mind. But on a good day - and there are plenty of good days - it has quite phenomenal energy and excitement.

If Worthen had held us among Lawrence's poems for a little longer, and at a greater depth, he would have done his man a favour. As he would also have done if he'd explored certain subjects that are common to both Lawrence and Hughes. Not just the subject of animals, but that of the environment in general. For years at the end of the last century, Lawrence's "phallic consciousness" gripped popular and critical attention. If we gave that a rest for a while and looked at his eco-consciousness instead, we'd find that Lawrence was just as far ahead of the game in this respect as in others.

His poems about bats, snakes, bugs, flowers, swifts are not just brilliant evocations of those creatures. They express a gigantic network of sympathies, held together in an extraordinary focus of concentration. In the old days, this was generally liked but downgraded as "nature writing". Now that we think differently about the planet, and the community of species we share it with, we should raise Lawrence's contribution to the high position it deserves.

[1]

It is an hour or two after Midnight. And I am Twenty-seven years old,

So announces the calendar Keeper who resides Under my skin & scalp.

And the tongue of a bell That hangs from the rafters Of my heart seems to grow

Heavy with all these years Of solitude. It begins to move, As if to toll, as if to mark

Off the year that has Been just done, with all That I did and didn’t do.

This is perhaps how The ability to comprehend Time’s account books -

Those sky-exposed Element-flayed logs On forest floors -

Comes. Something is Happening now. And the green radiance

Of the clock’s dial Is its only witness. It is an hour or so

After midnight. I am Twenty seven now. And Understanding, when Will you come?

[2]

As you have given This March day both Light and rain, Magnolias at my window Astonishment At the end of another winter, Music for these long Cloud-dark afternoon hours And air for my land-locked Breath to echo the sea,

Give these hands too A measure of grace As they move Over this page To write Thank you.