Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes The Laburnum top is silent, quite still In the afternoon yellow September sunlight, A few leaves yellowing, all its seeds fallen. Till the goldfinch comes, with a twitching chirrup A suddenness, a startlement, at a branch end. Then sleek as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt, She enters the thickness, and a machine starts up Of chitterings, and a tremor of wings, and trillings — The whole tree trembles and thrills. It is the engine of her family. She stokes it full, then flirts out to a branch-end Showing her barred face identity mask Then with eerie delicate whistle-chirrup whisperings She launches away, towards the infinite And the laburnum subsides to empty. laburnum: a short tree with hanging branches, yellow flowers and poisonous seeds goldfinch: a small singing bird with yellow feathers on its wings