New and Selected Poems
Page 28
The old man’s blood had spoken the word: ‘Enough’ 52
The pig lay on a barrow dead 34
The rat is in the trap, it is in the trap 76
There was a man 111
There was a person 110
There was the sun on the wall – my childhood’s 121
There was this man and he was the strongest 99
There was this terrific battle 95
The salmon were just down there 256
The sea cries with its meaningless voice 83
These grasses of light 158
The sheep has stopped crying 136
The strange part is his head. Her head. The strangely ripened 259
The swallow – rebuilding 152
The tide-swell grinds crystal, under cliffs 223
The tiger kills hungry. The machine-guns 201
The tractor stands frozen – an agony 179
The violinist’s shadow vanishes 57
The wind on Crow Hill was her darling 173
The wolf with its belly stitched full of big pebbles 24
They lift 163
This evening 246
This evening, motherly summer moves in the pond 23
This house has been far out at sea all night 14
This is the maneater’s skull 150
This morning blue vast clarity of March sky 187
‘This water droplet, charity of the air’ 12
Those stars are the fleshed forebears 30
Till they seemed to trip and trap 126
Tonight 247
Underwater eyes, an eel’s 37
‘Up in the pools,’ they’d said, and ‘Two miles upstream’ 244
Was it an animal was it a bird? 117
Was the silkiest day of the young year 190
Water wanted to live 118
Waving goodbye, from your banked hospital bed 151
We came where the salmon were so many 265
We had a motorbike all through the war 194
‘Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote’ 293
What am I? Nosing here, turning leaves over 87
What do they think of themselves 278
When Crow was white he decided the sun was too white 97
Whenever I am got under my gravestone 7
When everything that can fall has fallen 125
When God, disgusted with man 110
When her grave opened its ugly mouth 312
When it comes down to it 217
When Parnell’s Irish in the House 28
When the eagle soared clear through a dawn distilling of emerald 98
When the gnats dance at evening 85
When the patient, shining with pain 109
When the pistol muzzle oozing blue vapour 93
When the serpent emerged, earth-bowel brown 101
Where is the Black Beast? 94
Where the pool unfurls its undercloud 249
Where there was nothing 172
Who lived at the top end of our street 35
Who modelled your head of terracotta? 295
Who owns these scrawny little feet? Death 90
Who put this pit-head wheel 280
Who’s killed the leaves? 142
Wind out of freezing Europe. A mean snow 178
Yesterday he was nowhere to be found 285
You did not want to be Christlike. Though your Father 300
You had to strip off Germany 311
You hosts are almost glad he gate-crashed: see 11
Your bony white bowed back, in a singlet 191
Your German 307
Your temples, where the hair crowded in 297
Your tree – your oak 155
You were like a religious fanatic 300
About the Author
Ted Hughes (1930-1998) was born in Yorkshire. His first book, The Hawk in the Rain, was published in 1957 by Faber and Faber and was followed by many volumes of poetry and prose for adults and children. He received the Whitbread Book of the Year for two consecutive years for his last published collections of poetry, Tales from Ovid (1997) and Birthday Letters (1998). He was Poet Laureate from 1984, and in 1998 he was appointed to the Order of Merit.
Copyright
This ebook edition published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
All rights reserved
© Ted Hughes, 1995
The right of Ted Hughes to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–26303–5