Pike, by Ted Hughes

[Pangolin]

Does anyone have the words to this famous poem? I need them for next week...

[John Ellison]

I've got them, got to go out in ten minutes. I'll put them up tommorrow.

[Chris Plumb]

Ahh - memories. Whilst I was at Exeter Uni - many years ago I was err seeing a German exchange student who was studying English. I remember she dragged me along to a poetry reading session (the things you'll do to get laid ) by Ted Hughes who I'm ashamed to say upto that point I'd never heard of. Needless to say I sat enthralled for 2 hours - Some of Ted's work especially on country matters was awesome (literally). I especially remember Pike - and was so taken with it I went out and bought it next day. Here it is...

 

Pike, three inches long, perfect

Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.

Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.

They dance on the surface among the flies

 

Or move, stunned by their own grandeur,

Over a bed of emerald, silhouette

Of submarine delicacy and horror

A hundred feet long in their world

 

In ponds, under the heat-struck lily pads -

Gloom of their stillness

Logged on last year's black leaves, watching upwards.

Or hung in an amber cavern of weeds.

 

The jaws' hooked clamp and fangs

Not to be changed at this date;

A life subdued to its instrument

The gills kneading quietly, and the pectorals.

 

Three we kept behind glass

Jungled in weed: three inches, four,

And four and a half: fed fry to them-

Suddenly there were two. Finally one.

 

With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.

And indeed they spare nobody

Two, six pounds each, over two feet long,

High and dry and dead in the willow herb -

 

One jammed past its gills down the other's gullet:

The outside eye stared: as a vice locks-

The same iron in this eye

Though its film shrank in death.

 

A pond I fished, fifty yards across,

Whose lillies and muscular tench

Had outlasted every visible stone

Of the monastery that planted them-

 

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

 

But silently cast and fished

With the hair frozen on my head

For what might move, for what eye might move.

The still splashes on the dark pond,

 

Owls hushing the floating woods

Frail on my ear against the dream

Darkness beneath night's darkness had freed,

That rose slowly towards me, watching.

 

 

From Lupercal 1960 (Faber&Faber)ISBN 0571092462

 

 

Terrific stuff, eh?

 

 

Chris

[Russell Fitzpatrick]

i love pike,and that is trific as we say in the east end,the first part describes them perfectly,ive no shame on admiting im lost on the last part!uneducated cockneys a?

[Pangolin]

Thanks for the words of the poem, Chris. I used to fish with Ted Hughes quite regularly, through being a friend of his son, Nick. My memories of Ted are all good ones.

[Fordy]

I think this sums up why we all go fishing. Fantastic. He should have been a poet or something!

[John Ellison]

Cheers Chris, saved me some effort there. Got all his other stuff in a book to hand. I'm not a fan myself.