New and Selected Poems (35 page)
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
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.
CopyrightThis ebook edition published in 2010
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DAAll rights reserved
© Ted Hughes, 1995The 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