3 OCTOBER 1958, Page 34

Things Present •

All things being done or undone

As my hands adore or abandon—

Embody a now, erect a here

A bare-backed tramp and a ditch without fire

Cat or bread; and no shoes, Honour, or hope, him—whose Progenitors back to the sea-salt Bride-bed to cradle assoiled Honour of its shifty-eyes, and hope Of its shaky heart-beat, and step By step got into stout shoes beneath A roof treed to deflect death.

My sires had towers and great names, And that their effort be brought to an edge Honed their bodies away, dreams The tramp in the sodden ditch.

TED HUGHES