Bayonet Charge - Ted Hughes (1930-1998)

CONTEXT

• Hughes wrote often about nature and its power: here, nature is a victim.
• This poem was written early in his career, when he was inspired by Wilfred Owen (Exposure!).
• Hughes had no experience of war, but his father fought and nearly died in WW1.

Suddenly he awoke and was running – raw

In raw-seamed hot khaki, his sweat heavy,

Stumbling across a field of clods towards a green hedge

That dazzled with rifle fire, hearing

Bullets smacking the belly out of the air –

He lugged a rifle numb as a smashed arm;

The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye

Sweating like molten iron from the centre of his chest,

In bewilderment then he almost stopped –

In what cold clockwork of the stars and the nations

Was he the hand pointing that second? He was running

Like a man who has jumped up in the dark and runs

Listening between his footfalls for the reason

Of his still running, and his foot hung like

Statuary in mid-stride. Then the shot-slashed furrows

Threw up a yellow hare that rolled like a flame

And crawled in a threshing circle, its mouth wide

Open silent, its eyes standing out.

He plunged past with his bayonet toward the green hedge,

King, honour, human dignity, etcetera

Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm

To get out of that blue crackling air

His terror’s touchy dynamite.

"Suddenly he awoke and was running" - starting with 'suddenly' gives the poem speed and helps us to feel his confusion. It also creates tension. Maybe he's running because he doesn't want to be there?

"The patriotic tear that had brimmed in his eye" - He was once patriotic, but now he is not, and he is simply fighting to survive.

"In what cold clockwork of the stars and nations/ Was he the hand pointing that second?" - illiteration makes a ticking sound, his time is running out. Part of a machine, cog? Maybe it's suggesting that without his compliance, the plan will fail? Maybe the stars have control over his fate? Metaphor, the country is guiding him not the stars.

"King, honour, human dignity, etcetera/ Dropped like luxuries in a yelling alarm" - Triad emphasizes how much he is fighting for in the war. Dropped is a monosyllabic word with three plosives, sounds like a bomb maybe?