New and Selected Poems by Ted Hughes

the leaves
    My thoughts have crept into crannies
     
    Your dancing
     
    Your dancing
     
    Rolls my staring skull slowly away into outer space.
     

Full Moon and Little Frieda
     
     
    A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket –
     
    And you listening.
    A spider’s web, tense for the dew’s touch.
    A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror
    To tempt a first star to a tremor.
     
    Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath –
    A dark river of blood, many boulders,
    Balancing unspilled milk.
     
    ‘Moon!’ you cry suddenly, ‘Moon! Moon!’
     
    The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work
     
    That points at him amazed.
     

Wodwo
     
     
    What am I? Nosing here, turning leaves over
    Following a faint stain on the air to the river’s edge
    I enter water. What am I to split
    The glassy grain of water looking upward I see the bed
    Of the river above me upside down very clear
    What am I doing here in mid-air? Why do I find
    this frog so interesting as I inspect its most secret
    interior and make it my own? Do these weeds
    know me and name me to each other have they
    seen me before, do I fit in their world? I seem
    separate from the ground and not rooted but dropped
    out of nothing casually I’ve no threads
    fastening me to anything I can go anywhere

    I seem to have been given the freedom
    of this place what am I then? And picking
    bits of bark off this rotten stump gives me
    no pleasure and it’s no use so why do I do it
    me and doing that have coincided very queerly
    But what shall I be called am I the first
    have I an owner what shape am I what
    shape am I am I huge if I go
    to the end on this way past these trees and past these trees
    till I get tired that’s touching one wall of me
    for the moment if I sit still how everything
    stops to watch me I suppose I am the exact centre
    but there’s all this what is it roots
    roots roots roots and here’s the water
    again very queer but I’ll go on looking
     

from CROW
     
     

Two Legends 
     
     
    I
     
    Black was the without eye
    Black the within tongue
    Black was the heart
    Black the liver, black the lungs
    Unable to suck in light
    Black the blood in its loud tunnel
    Black the bowels packed in furnace
    Black too the muscles
    Striving to pull out into the light
    Black the nerves, black the brain
    With its tombed visions
    Black also the soul, the huge stammer
    Of the cry that, swelling, could not
    Pronounce its sun.
     
    II
     
    Black is the wet otter’s head, lifted.
    Black is the rock, plunging in foam.
    Black is the gall lying on the bed of the blood.
     
    Black is the earth-globe, one inch under,
    An egg of blackness
    Where sun and moon alternate their weathers
     
    To hatch a crow, a black rainbow
    Bent in emptiness
                                  over emptiness
     
    But flying
     

Lineage
     
     
    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 Never
    Never Never Never
     
    Who begat Crow
     
    Screaming for Blood
    Grubs, crusts
    Anything
     
    Trembling featherless elbows in the nest’s filth
     

Examination at the Womb-Door
     
     
    Who owns these scrawny little feet? Death.
    Who owns this bristly scorched-looking face? Death.
    Who owns these still-working lungs? Death.
    Who owns this utility coat of muscles? Death.
    Who owns these unspeakable guts? Death.
    Who owns these questionable brains? Death.
    All this messy blood? Death.  
     

    These minimum-efficiency eyes? Death.
    This wicked little tongue? Death.
    This occasional wakefulness? Death.  
     
    Given, stolen, or held pending trial?
    Held.  
     
    Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death.
    Who owns all of space? Death.  
     
    Who is stronger than hope? Death.
    Who is