Ode for Ted
Ode for Ted - meaning Summary
Admiration and Possession
This ode praises a man — believed to be Ted Hughes — as a potent, almost mythic force in nature. The speaker catalogs how his presence and glance bring forth animals, crops, and light, crediting him with summoning life from soil and wood. The tone mixes awe, erotic admiration, and possessive pride as the speaker positions herself as the grateful "adam's woman," celebrating the man’s creative, commanding power over the natural world.
Read Complete AnalysesFrom under the crunch of my man's boot green oat-sprouts jut; he names a lapwing, starts rabbits in a rout legging it most nimble to sprigged hedge of bramble, stalks red fox, shrewd stoat. Loam-humps, he says, moles shunt up from delved worm-haunt; blue fur, moles have; hefting chalk-hulled flint he with rock splits open knobbed quartz; flayed colors ripen rich, brown, sudden in sunlight. For his least look, scant acres yield: each finger-furrowed field heaves forth stalk, leaf, fruit-nubbed emerald; bright grain sprung so rarely he hauls to his will early; at his hand's staunch hest, birds build. Ringdoves roost well within his wood, shirr songs to suit which mood he saunters in; how but most glad could be this adam's woman when all earth his words do summon leaps to laud such man's blood!
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