Page:Tortoises, DH Lawrence, 1921.djvu/52

The tortoise eternity,
Agelong, reptilian persistence,
Heart-throb, slow heart-throb, persistent for the
    next spasm.

I remember, when I was a boy,
I heard the scream of a frog, which was caught
    with his foot in the mouth of an up-starting
    snake;
I remember when I first heard bull-frogs break
    into sound in the spring;
I remember hearing a wild goose out of the throat
    of night
Cry loudly, beyond the lake of waters;
I remember the first time, out of a bush in the
    darkness, a nightingale's piercing cries and
    gurgles startled the depths of my soul;
I remember the scream of a rabbit as I went
    through a wood at midnight;
I remember the heifer in her heat, blorting and
    blorting through the hours, persistent and
    irrepressible;
I remember my first terror hearing the howl of
    weird, amorous cats;
I remember the scream of a terrified, injured
    horse, the sheet-lightning