The Bull

The bull is a mountain of mass, He stands like an altar, A rock above a new moon’s pasture, Wrinkled and broad, His hair is a thick mane of curled turf, And under him the valley is a level maze of grass. His eyes fathom the deep sea, while his back Holds the sky taut as a drum – a vessel Of sunlit starry sky. He moves like the tide, rocking the hand of origin, Yet striding out vast on the earth away from dawn, With the night at his heels.

The rush of this heart, This glow of his motion grass, On the earth that is a womb For his thick warmth, a blush of life out in the air. Still as a living thing, as a stone in the soil, Awake under autumnal drenches, A John of his own territory.

• Ted Hughes