Gory stuff, and brilliant poetry. Sometimes I like to remind myself just how good a poet Ted Hughes is. (As a poet he lives on in the present, I believe.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Burned by Bloody Mary\u2019s men at Caermarthen<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If I flinch from the pain of the burning, believe not the doctrine that I have preached. \u2014 His words at the stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Bloody Mary\u2019s venomous flames can curl;
They can shrivel sinew and char bone
Of foot, ankle, knee and thigh, and boil
Bowels, and drop his heart a cinder down;
And her soldiers can cry, as they hurl
Logs in the red rush: \u201cThis is her sermon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The sullen-jowled watching Welsh townspeople
Hear him crack in the fire\u2019s mouth: they see what
Black oozing twist of stuff bubbles the smell
That tars and retches their lungs: no pulpit
Of his ever held their eyes so still,
Never, as now his agony, his wit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An ignorant means to establish ownership
Of his flock! Thus their shepherd she seized
And knotted him into this blazing shape
In their eyes, as if such could have cauterized
The trust they turned towards him, and branded on
Its stump her claim, to outlaw question.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So it might have been: seeing their exemplar
And teacher burned for his lessons to black bits,
Their silence might have disowned him to her,
And hung up what he had taught with their Welsh hats:
Who sees his blasphemous father struck by fire
From heaven, might well be heard to speak no oaths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the fire that struck here, come from Hell even,
Kindled little heavens in his words
As he fed his body to the flame alive.
Words which, before they will be dumbly spared,
Will burn their body and be tongued with fire
Make paltry folly of flesh and this world\u2019s air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When they saw what annuities of hours
And comfortable blood he burned to get
His words a bare honouring in their ears,
The shrewd townsfolk pocketed them hot:
Stamp was not current but they rang and shone
As good gold as any queen\u2019s crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gave all he had, and yet the bargain struck
To a merest farthing his whole agony,
His body\u2019s cold-kept miserdom on shrieks
He gave uncounted, while out of his eyes,
Out of his mouth, fire like a glory broke,
And smoke burned his sermon into the skies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gory stuff, and brilliant poetry. Sometimes I like to remind myself just how good a poet Ted Hughes is. (As a poet he lives on in the present, I believe.) Burned by Bloody Mary\u2019s men at Caermarthen If I flinch from the pain of the burning, believe not the doctrine that I have preached. \u2014 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-66","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-non-classe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70,"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66\/revisions\/70"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bills-books.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}