Our literary journey through Macbeth has finally come to an end and many of the class are sorry to say goodbye to William Shakespeare, this has been a great introduction to classical English literature. Now we move forward in time and continue our work on metaphor, with the following poem by Ted Hughes. Here it is for you to enjoy; I’m sure your child will be able to tell you something about the metaphorical language used by the writer!
Mrs Maddison
Wind
This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet
Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.
At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. I dared once to look up –
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes.
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,
The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap:
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house
Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,
Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move on, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stories cry out under the horizons.
By Ted Hughes
