THE THOUGHT FOX
I imagine this midnight moment's forest: * alliteration
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness *personification
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 * simile
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf; * extended metaphor
Two eyes serve a movement, that now * metonymy
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 * printing terminololgy
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, * onomatopoeia
The page is printed.
Ted Hughes
The “Thought Fox” is a poem about the creative process and
specifically about writing a poem. Ted Hughes metaphorically
depicts literary inspiration as a fox that moves surreptitiously
though the night. It is an extended metaphor. The fox
metaphorically represents the inspiration.
I imagine this midnight moment's forest: * alliteration
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness *personification
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 * simile
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf; * extended metaphor
Two eyes serve a movement, that now * metonymy
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 * printing terminololgy
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, * onomatopoeia
The page is printed.
Ted Hughes
The “Thought Fox” is a poem about the creative process and
specifically about writing a poem. Ted Hughes metaphorically
depicts literary inspiration as a fox that moves surreptitiously
though the night. It is an extended metaphor. The fox
metaphorically represents the inspiration.
