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DISCORD IN CHILDHOOD

D. H. Lawrence

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.