HAWK ROOSTING
Ted Hughes
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes close.
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 the advantage to me;
And the earth’s face upwards for my inspection.
My feet are looked 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 argument 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.
WHAT I FEEL:
One of Hughes' most well-known poem is 'Hawk Roosting'. Animal world always fascinated the poet; especially he was interested in the violent aspects and brutal forces of nature. In this poem the hawk is consumed with the thought of death. It seems to me as a personification of fascism which is an all-devouring radical idea. The hawk is willing to kill every tender animal, and thus it wishes to establish its utmost supremacy--very much reminiscent of the dream of Hitler.
