This is a short poem by DH Lawrence which I think resonates so firmly the growing trend of modernist poetry. Lawrence wrote it, or at least published it, in 1929, a year before his death:
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.
This short, unrhymed poem is Lawrence's way of conveying the pride of humanity, how a small bird defies death by remaining stoic, and yet we, as humans, drown ourselves in the poem's titular fault--self-pity. Lawrence's poetry is somewhat ignored nowadays; his novels are more widely read. He was, however, a gifted poet, and I recommend that everyone read his work. In the case of this poem, I believe the power of it comes from the amazingly modern feel to it: the enjambment, for instance, serves a revelatory purpose, the enjambed lines themselves constantly completing the emotion/observation that the preceding lines start. This poem is so different from anything published, say, 30 years prior to its own publication. In 1899, British poets such as Thomas Hardy still had a dinstinctly Victorian flavor to their work.