Ted Hughes




The Thought-Fox

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest: 
Something else is alive 
Beside the clock’s loneliness 
And this blank page where my fingers move.
 
Through the window I see no star: 
Something more near 
Though deeper within darkness 
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow, 
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf; 
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow 
Between trees, and warily a lame 
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow 
Of a body that is bold to come 

Across clearings, an eye, 
A widening deepening greenness, 
Brilliantly, concentratedly, 
Coming about its own business 

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox 
It enters the dark hole of the head. 
The window is starless still; the clock ticks, 
The page is printed.