Ted Hughes — God Help the Wolf After Whom the Dogs Do Not Bark

There you met it – the mystery of hatred. After your billions of years in anonymous matter That was where you were found – and promptly hated. You tried your utmost to reach and touch those people With gifts of yourself – Just like your first words as a toddler When you rushed at every visitor to the house Clasping their legs and crying: ‘I love you! I love you!’ Just as you had danced for your father In his home of anger – gifts of your life To sweeten his slow death and mix yourself in it Where he lay propped on the couch, To sugar the bitterness of his raging death. You searched for yourself to go on giving it As if after the nightfall of his going You danced on in the dark house, Eight years old, in your tinsel. Searching for yourself, in the dark, as you danced, Floundering a little, crying softly, Like somebody searching for somebody drowning In dark water Listening for them – in panic at losing Those listening seconds from your searching – Then dancing wilder in the darkness. The colleges lifted their heads. It did seem You disturbed something just perfected That they were holding carefully, all of a piece, Till the glue dried. And as if Reporting some felony to the police They let you know that you were not John Donne. You no longer care. Did you save their names? But then they let you know, day by day, Their contempt for everything you attempted, Took pains to inject their bile, as for your health, Into your morning coffee. Even signed Their homeopathic letters, Envelopes full of carefully broken glass To lodge behind your eyes so you would see Nobody wanted your dance, Nobody wanted your strange glitter – your floundering Drowning life and your effort to save yourself, Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil, Looking for something to give – Whatever you found They bombarded with splinters, Derision, mud – the mystery of that hatred.