HAWK ROOSTING by Ted Hughes

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.