Ted Hughes 
I never liked you, not from the start,
not since your fox slinked through the fence into my garden
and rooted his way down under the flowerbeds.
O much has changed since you began to keep hate up.
When the hard hitting winter hooked even the water
in the raintroughs and the news of Ariel came.
Now after thirty years like a hawk you eye me at every turn.
First that hurt you did someone close to me you hardly
excused. I turned to Rome and Ovid and you
awkwardly followed turning the Sulmonite into something he was not
and into your rooks and crows of vowels.
How dare you retell the old tales like they were yours.
In the dark holm oaks of Horsenden Wood all summer
I listened to your voice trailing out perfect the
great tradition on which for now you close
the door and some old tenderness took hold of me
like when you read after your second great loss
and even old enemies wept to see you curved
under poetry, your own and the American bride’s.
November for the dead: November for the saints.
Dear dead saint pray for us now and at our midnight moment’s hour. |
