Ted Hughes

Against the rubber tongues of cows and the hoeing hands of
Thistles spike the summer
And crackle open under a blue-black pressure
Every one a revengeful

She gives him his eyes, she found
Among some rubble, among some
He gives her her
He just seemed to pull it down out of the air and lay it over

When Crow was white he decided the sun was too white
He decided it glared much too whitely
He decided to attack it and defeat it
He got his strength up flush and in full glitter

Looking at cows in their high-roofy roomy Windy home, mid-afternoon idling,
Late winter, near spring, the fields not greening,
The wind North-East and sickening, the
Shrinking, the year growing

I saw my world again through your
As I would see it again through your children's eyes
Through your eyes it was foreign
Plain hedge hawthorns were peculiar aliens,

Terrifying are the attent sleek thrushes on the lawn,
More coiled steel than living - a
Dark deadly eye, those delicate
Triggered to stirrings beyond sense - with a start, a bounce, a

The mahogany table-top you
Had been the broad plank
Of my mother's heirloom sideboard-Mapped with the scars of my whole life
That came under the hammer

No, the serpent did not Seduce Eve to the apple
All that's simply Corruption of the facts
Adam ate the apple
Eve ate Adam

Freezing dusk is closing Like a slow trap of
On trees and roads and hills and all That can no longer feel
But the carp is in its depth Like a planet in its heaven
And the badger in its bedding Like a loaf in the oven...

In a cage of
The size of a man's head, the macaw bristles in a
Combustion, suffers the stoking devils of his eyes
In the old lady's parlour, where an aspidistra

The flame-red moon, the harvest moon,
Rolls along the hills, gently bouncing,
A vast balloon,
Till it takes off, and sinks

What am I
Nosing here, turning leaves
Following a faint stain on the air to the river's edgeI enter water
Who am I to

In the beginning was Scream Who begat Blood Who begat Eye Who begat Fear Who begat Wing Who begat Bone Who begat Granite Who begat Violet Who begat Guitar Who begat Sweat Who begat Adam Who begat Mary Who begat God Who begat Nothing Who begat Neve...

The grass is
To run like the sea, to be glossed like a mink’s
By polishing wind
Her heart is the weather

Eased eyes open, showed leaves
Eyes laughing and
Ran among flowers of leaves And looked at light's
Which led from leaf, upward, and back down to leaf

We sit late, watching the dark slowly unfold:
No clock counts this
When kisses are repeated and the arms hold There is no telling where time is
It is midsummer: the leaves hang big and still: