Ted Hughes Quotes

Nothing has changed since I began. My eye has permitted no change. I am going to keep things like this.

You were the jailer of your murderer— Which imprisoned you. And since I was your nurse and your protector Your sentence was mine too.

Only the rain never tires.

Black village of gravestones.

And the elephant sings deep in the forest-maze About a star of deathless and painless peace But no astronomer can find where it is.

But Oedipus he had the luck For when he hit the ground He bounced up like a jackinabox And knocked his Daddy down.

And he shivered with the horror of Creation.

But who is stronger than death? Me, evidently.

Who owns the whole rainy, stony earth? Death. Who owns all of space? Death.

No, the serpent did not Seduce Eve to the apple. All that’s simply Corruption of the facts. Adam ate the apple. Eve ate Adam. The serpent ate Eve. This is the dark intestine. The serpent, meanwhile, Sleeps his meal off in Paradise— Smiling to hear God’s querulous calling.

The brassy wood-pigeons Bubble their colourful voices, and the sun Rises upon a world well-tried and old.

The deeps are cold: In that darkness camaraderie does not hold: Nothing touches but, clutching, devours.

The gash in its throat was shocking, but not pathetic.

Pike, three inches long, perfect Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold. Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.

The world rolls under the long thrust of his heel. Over the cage floor the horizons come.