Ted Hughes Quote
On the course of that chariot and those horses.A boy could not hope to control them.You are my son, but mortal. No mortalCould hope to manage those reins.Not even the gods are allowed to touch them. ... 'Our first stretch is almost vertical.Fresh as they are, first thing,It is all the horses can do to get up it.Then on to mid-heaven. TerrifyingTo look down through nothingAt earth and sea, so tiny.My heart nearly struggles out of my bodyAs the chariot sways.Then the plunge towards evening - There you need strength on the reins. Tethys, 'Who waits to receive meInto her waters, is always afraidI shall topple -And come tumblingHead over heels in a tangled mass. 'Remember, too,That the whole sky is revolvingWith its constellations, its planets.I have to force my course against that - Not to be swept backwards as all else is. 'What will you do,Your feet braced at the chariot, the reins in your hands,When you have to counter the pullOf the whistling Poles? When the momentumOf the whole reeling cosmos hauls you off sideways?
On the course of that chariot and those horses.A boy could not hope to control them.You are my son, but mortal. No mortalCould hope to manage those reins.Not even the gods are allowed to touch them. ... 'Our first stretch is almost vertical.Fresh as they are, first thing,It is all the horses can do to get up it.Then on to mid-heaven. TerrifyingTo look down through nothingAt earth and sea, so tiny.My heart nearly struggles out of my bodyAs the chariot sways.Then the plunge towards evening - There you need strength on the reins. Tethys, 'Who waits to receive meInto her waters, is always afraidI shall topple -And come tumblingHead over heels in a tangled mass. 'Remember, too,That the whole sky is revolvingWith its constellations, its planets.I have to force my course against that - Not to be swept backwards as all else is. 'What will you do,Your feet braced at the chariot, the reins in your hands,When you have to counter the pullOf the whistling Poles? When the momentumOf the whole reeling cosmos hauls you off sideways?
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About Ted Hughes
He married fellow poet Sylvia Plath in 1956, and they lived together in the United States and then in England, in a tumultuous relationship. They had two children before separating in 1962 and Plath ended her own life in 1963.