The poem
The elephant, the huge old beast, is slow to mate; he finds a female, they show no haste they wait
for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts slowly, slowly to rouse as they loiter along the river-beds and drink and browse
and dash in panic through the brake of forest with the herd, and sleep in massive silence, and wake together, without a word.
So slowly the great hot elephant hearts grow full of desire, and the great beasts mate in secret at last, hiding their fire.
Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts so they know at last how to wait for the loneliest of feasts for the full repast.
They do not snatch, they do not tear; their massive blood moves as the moon-tides, near, more near till they touch in flood.
Lawrence shows the sexual relationship to be so much fuller, and patient, and loving, than just a quick self-satisfying release. I use this poem in talking about disciplined sexuality.
One of the first poems that I have read, in the course of a day, by D.H. Lawrence; the prose is simple, neat, but still beautifully communicative of the subject matter; it moves like the hearts of the elephants themselves: slowly, thickly, hotly, a steady heartbeat.