Worm Either Way
Worm Either Way
Original Text
D. H. Lawrence, Pansies: Poems (London: Martin Secker, 1929): 22-23. PR 6023 A93P3 1929 Robarts Library
1If you live along with all the other people
2and are just like them, and conform, and are nice
3you're just a worm --
4and if you live with all the other people
5and you don't like them and won't be like them and won't conform
6then you're just the worm that has turned,
7in either case, a worm.
8The conforming worm stays just inside the skin
9respectably unseen, and cheerfully gnaws away at the heart of life,
10making it all rotten inside.
11The unconforming worm -- that is, the worm that has turned --
12gnaws just the same, gnawing the substance out of life,
14and poking his head out and waving himself
15and saying: Look at me, I am not respectable,
16I do all the things the bourgeois daren't do,
17I booze and fornicate and use foul language and despise your honest man.--
18But why should the worm that has turned protest so much?
19The bonnie bonnie bourgeois goes a-whoring up back streets just the same.
20The busy busy bourgeois imbibes his little share
21just the same
22if not more.
24if not pinker,
25and in private boasts his exploits even louder, if you ask me,
26than the other.
27While as to honesty, Oh look where the money lies!
28So I can't see where the worm that has turned puts anything over
29the worm that is too cunning to turn.
30On the contrary, he merely gives himself away.
31The turned worm shouts. I bravely booze!
32the other says. Have one with me!
33The turned worm boasts: I copulate!
34the unturned says: You look it.
35You're a d----- b----- b----- p----- bb-----, says the worm that's turned.
Notes
13] epidermis: outermost skin. Back to Line
23] pinks: pretties up (OED, "pink," v. 4). Back to Line
36] Cuckoo!: "crazy!" or perhaps "and so on, ad nauseum!" (OED "cuckoo," v. sense 2). Back to Line
Publication Start Year
1929
Publication Notes
See Roberts A47
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
RPO 2000.
Form