Quotes from Lupercal — Ted Hughes
1930–1998 England
← All quotes by Ted Hughes
8 quotes
The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs
Not to be changed at this date;
A life subdued to its instrument.
Lupercal (1960)
The deeps are cold:
In that darkness camaraderie does not hold:
Nothing touches but, clutching, devours.
Lupercal (1960)
Pike, three inches long, perfect
Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.
Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.
Lupercal (1960)
The gash in its throat was shocking, but not pathetic.
Lupercal (1960)
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
Lupercal (1960)
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.
Lupercal (1960)
Stilled legendary depth:
It was as deep as England. It held
Pike too immense to stir, so immense and old
That past nightfall I dared not cast.
Lupercal (1960)
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.
Lupercal (1960)