Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
Ted Hughes
This poem from the collection The Hawk in the Rain shows Hughes in a cynical mood, his grim humour, bordering on misanthropy. In his poetry, life and death are inseperable, as he demonstrates here, but not in a positive way. Death is a catalyst that exposes the dishonesty of humans — the smile of me...
Whenever I am got under my gravestone
Sending my flowers up to stare at the church-tower,
Gritting my teeth in the chill from the church-floor,
I shall praise God heartily, to see gone,
As I look round at old acquaintance there,
Complacency from the smirk of every man,
And every attitude showing its bone,
And every mouth confessing its crude shire;
But I shall thank God thrice heartily
To be lying beside women who grimace
Under the commitments of their flesh,
And not out of spite or vanity.
Soliloquy of a Misanthrope was written by Ted Hughes.