D.H. Lawrence (1885–1930). Amores. 1916.

4. Discord in Childhood

OUTSIDE the house an ash-tree hung its terrible whips,

And at night when the wind arose, the lash of the tree

Shrieked and slashed the wind, as a ship’s

Weird rigging in a storm shrieks hideously.

Within the house two voices arose in anger, a slender lash

Whistling delirious rage, and the dreadful sound

Of a thick lash booming and bruising, until it drowned

The other voice in a silence of blood, ’neath the noise of the ash.