Page:Tortoises, DH Lawrence, 1921.djvu/53

And running away from the sound of a woman in
    labor, something like an owl whooing,
And listening inwardly to the first bleat of a
    lamb,
The first wail of an infant,
And my mother singing to herself,
And the first tenor singing of the passionate
    throat of a young collier, who has long since
    drunk himself to death,
The first elements of foreign speech
On wild dark lips.

And more than all these,
And less than all these,
This last,
Strange, faint coition yell
Of the male tortoise at extremity,
Tiny from under the very edge of the farthest
    far-off horizon of life.

The cross,
The wheel on which our silence first is broken,
Sex, which breaks up our integrity, our single
    inviolability, our deep silence
Tearing a cry from us.