The Beast}

They whispered with the clicks of the river, Its pockets of eddying flower, Echoing through the bowl of my being. A tawny slack face appeared in the mist, In a raving dance of a thousand thorns. Whipping needles clasping the skin, I tread softly, quivering in reverie. And the hives stirred in sweetness As I haunted this wild, roaring mouth. He lit a fire across its threshold; He opened up a body of song And told tales across the sky’s rolling mass. Come bubbling shades, and you shone through, And I let them have their forages, Clinging, heart pumping wide and free.

• Ted Hughes