Page:Tortoises, DH Lawrence, 1921.djvu/51

And the deep, secret, all-penetrating tail curved
    beneath her walls,
Reaching and gripping tense, more reaching
    anguish in uttermost tension
Till suddenly, in the spasm of coition, tupping
    like a jerking leap, and oh!
Opening its clenched face from his outstretched
    neck
And giving that fragile yell, that scream,
Super-audible,
From his pink, cleft, old-man's mouth,
Giving up the ghost,
Or screaming in Pentecost, receiving the ghost.

His scream, and his moment's subsidence,
The moment of eternal silence,
Yet unreleased, and after the moment, the sud-
    den, startling jerk of coition, and at once
The inexpressible faint yell—
And so on, till the last plasm of my body was
    melted back
To the primeval rudiments of life, and the secret.
 
So he tups, and screams
Time after time that frail, torn scream
After each jerk, the longish interval,