The Thought-Fox

by Ted Hughes

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:

Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:

Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow,

A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow

Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,

A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with sudden sharp hot stink of fox

It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.
 Bayonet Charge By Ted Hughes 

Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw

In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy,
Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge
That dazzled with rifle fire, hearing
Bullets smacking the belly out of the air –
He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm;
The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye
Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest,

In bewilderment then he almost stopped –

In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations
Was he the hand pointing that second? He was running
Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs
Listening between his footfalls for the reason
Of his still running, and his foot hung like
Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows

Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame

And crawled in a threshing circle, its mouth wide
Open silent, its eyes standing out.
He plunged past with his bayonet toward the green hedge,
King, honour, human dignity, etcetera
Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm
To get out of that blue crackling air
His terror’s touchy dynamite.
The Hawk in the Rain 

I drown in the drumming ploughland, I drag up

Heel after heel from the swallowing of the earth’s mouth,
From clay that clutches my each step to the ankle
With the habit of the dogged grave, but the hawk

Effortlessly at height hangs his still eye.

His wings hold all creation in a weightless quiet,
Steady as a hallucination in the streaming air.
While banging wind kills these stubborn hedges,

Thumbs my eyes, throws my breath, tackles my heart,

And rain hacks my head to the bone, the hawk hangs
The diamond point of will that polestars
The sea drowner’s endurance: and I,

Bloodily grabbed dazed last-moment-counting

Morsel in the earth’s mouth, strain towards the master-
Fulcrum of violence where the hawk hangs still,
That maybe in his own time meets the weather

Coming from the wrong way, suffers the air, hurled upside down,
Fall from his eye, the ponderous shires crash on him,
The horizon traps him; the round angelic eye
Smashed, mix his heart’s blood with the mire of the land.
Crow Alightsthe
Crow Alightsthe crow alights by ted hughesthe crow alights by ted hughes
The crow alights by ted hughes

Crow saw the herded mountains, steaming in the morning.

___and he saw the sea
Dark-spined, with the whole earth in its coils.
He saw the stars, fuming away into the black, mushrooms of
___the nothing forest, clouding their spores, the virus of God.
And he shivered with the horror of Creation.

In the hallucination of the horror

He saw this shoe, with no sole, rain-sodden,
Lying on a moor.
And there was this garbage can, bottom rusted away,
A playing place for the wind, in a waste of puddles.

There was this coat, in the dark cupboard,

___in the silent room, in the silent house.
There was this face, smoking its cigarette between the dusk
___window and the fire’s embers.

Near the face, this hand, motionless.

Near the hand, this cup.

Crow blinked. He blinked. Nothing faded.

He stared at the evidence.

 Hawk Roosting’ Summary
‘Hawk Roosting’ is written as a dramatic monologue and is told
from the point of view of a hawk. The hawk details all the things in
nature that are available to him. He perches in the tall trees,
sleeping and looking for his prey. He believes all that is around
him exists for him and only him. He revels in his predatory nature,
fearing nothing and staking his claim on everything. He sees
himself as almost god-like; all that is around him is the way it is
because he deems it to be that way

 Stanza One

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

In the first stanza, the hawk seems to be deep in meditation. He

does not feel threatened by anything in the wild, and therefore,
he can easily close his eyes and not worry about his surroundings.
He is perched in a tree where he can easily look down on the
forest he inhabits. Hughes uses interesting diction in this stanza in
order to create imagery. He writes, “Between my hooked head
and hooked feet…” which emphasizes the dangerous and sharp
beak and claws of the bird. In line four, the hawk tells the reader
that he is able to perform the perfect kill even in his sleep.
Stanza Two

The convenience of the high trees!

The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

In the second stanza, the hawk conveys to his reader how easy
and convenient his life is. Everything in nature, it seems, has been
made for the sake of his pleasure and ease. In line five, the hawk
seems to be marveling at how much nature has given him; he is
so emphatic that he even uses an exclamation point to convey his
feelings. The trees are high for him; the air is buoyant, making it
easy for him to glide; the sun’s ray gives him warmth. He claims
that all of these aspects of nature make his life more convenient.
Hughes also creates a parallel between up and down. All is below
the hawk; the earth sits below him so that he can inspect it from
his perch. This dichotomy reflects the superiority of the hawk.

 Stanza Three

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

In this stanza, the hawk is announcing his perfection to his reader.

Again, he draws attention to his sharp claws, stabbing into the
tree limb as he perches. He explains that it took Creation—
probably capitalized here in order to represent God—everything
He possessed in order to produce just one of the hawk’s feet, and
each and every feather on his body. This stanza gives an image of
a higher power hard at work, slaving over how to create such a
great and powerful being. Now, the hawk proclaims, he, himself, is
God, more powerful than any being on both Earth and in Heaven.

 Stanza Four

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -

I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads –

The hawk is essentially saying that he can do whatever he pleases.

He can fly slowly through the air, taking in all of the sights
beneath him. He can kill wherever he pleases because all of the
world belongs to him. There is no need to lie or pretend otherwise
because the hawk can prove his power by tearing off the heads of
his victims.

The fourth stanza does not end neatly; again, Hughes carries the
thoughts of the hawk into the fifth stanza.

 
Stanza Five

The allotment of death.

For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The hawk is so god-like in this stanza that he says he chooses who

lives and dies. The one flight he makes is the one he takes to kill
his prey. There are no arguments necessary because he is all-
powerful.

Stanza Six

The sun is behind me.

Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

The sixth and final stanza closes ‘Hawk Roosting’ in an absolute

way. The hawk claims that the world has not changed since he
was created. Since then, it has been perfect and permanent. He
says it has not changed because he has not allowed it to do so.
Hawk Roosting

by Ted Hughes

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.

Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!

The air's buoyancy and the sun's ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth's face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.

It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -

I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads -

The allotment of death.

For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.

Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.