Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Introduction
Four prose excerpts
from THE HAWK IN THE RAIN (1957)
The Hawk in the Rain
The Jaguar
The Thought-Fox
The Horses
Meeting
from LUPERCAL (1960)
February
Esther’s Tomcat
Hawk Roosting
The Bull Moses
View of a Pig
An Otter
Thrushes
Pike
from RECKLINGS (1966)
Stealing Trout on a May Morning
The Lake
from WODWO (1967)
Thistles
Ghost Crabs
Second Glance at a Jaguar
Song of a Rat
Skylarks
The Howling of Wolves
Gnat-Psalm
Wodwo
from CROW (1970)
That Moment
Crow and the Birds
Crow Tyrannosaurus
Two Legends
Lineage
Examination at the Womb-Door
Crow’s Fall
Owl’s Song
Crow’s Elephant Totem Song
Littleblood
from PROMETHEUS ON HIS CRAG (1973)
‘Prometheus … Pestered by birds roosting and defecating’
‘Prometheus … Began to admire the vulture’
UNCOLLECTED (1975)
The Lamentable History of the Human Calf
from SEASON SONGS (1976)
Swifts
Mackerel Song
Work and Play
A Cranefly in September
The Stag
from GAUDETE (1977)
‘Calves harshly parted from their mamas’
UNCOLLECTED (1978)
A Solstice
from ORTS (1978)
‘The white shark’
from CAVE BIRDS (1978)
Only a Little Sleep, a Little Slumber
The Owl Flower
The Risen
from ADAM AND THE SACRED NINE (1979)
And the Falcon came
The Skylark came
The Wild Duck
The Swift comes the swift
The Unknown Wren
And Owl
The Dove Came
The Crow came to Adam
And the Phoenix has come
from REMAINS OF ELMET (1979)
Curlews
The Weasels We Smoked out of the Bank
The Canal’s Drowning Black
The Long Tunnel Ceiling
Cock-Crows
from MOORTOWN DIARY (1979)
Feeding out-wintering cattle at twilight
Foxhunt
Roe-deer
February 17th
Coming down through Somerset
While she chews sideways
Sheep
from EARTH-NUMB (1979)
The Lovepet
UNCOLLECTED (1980)
Mosquito
from A PRIMER OF BIRDS (1981)
Cuckoo
Swans
Buzzard
Snipe
The Hen
Mallard
Evening Thrush
Treecreeper
A Dove
UNCOLLECTED (1982–3)
Sing the Rat
Swallows
from RIVER (1983)
Under the Hill of Centurions
Milesian Encounter on the Sligachan
That Morning
A Rival
Performance
An Eel
October Salmon
Visitation
UNCOLLECTED (1984)
The Hare I–III
from FLOWERS AND INSECTS (1986)
Two Tortoiseshell Butterflies
In the Likeness of a Grasshopper
from WOLFWATCHING (1989)
A Sparrow Hawk
Wolfwatching
from TALES FROM OVID (1997)
from Arachne
from BIRTHDAY LETTERS (1998)
The Owl
The Chipmunk
Epiphany
from SELECTED TRANSLATIONS (2006)
from The Boy Changed into a Stag Cries Out at the Gate of Secrets
The Prophet
Acknowledgements
Also by Ted Hughes
A Note About the Author and Editor
Copyright