THE LABURNUM TOP

BY- TED HUGHES

• The Poem "The Laburnum Top" is a beautiful poem by Ted Hughes. In this poem, the poet has used the Laburnum tree and goldfinches as a symbol of life and its fluctuations. He describes the visiting of goldfinches on the Laburnum tree and how she has made a nest on it. When the goldfinches have chicks, it brings alive the tree as the chicks start to rustle and chirp. Hughes is trying to convey the message that life is a process of exchange and transformation. People are alive because they undergo exchange of energy. The goldfinches transform the tree and make it alive, without the goldfinches and the chicks the laburnum is just another tree

• The Laburnum top is silent, quite still. In the afternoon yellow september sunlight. A few leaves yellowing, all its seeds fallen.  

• Till the goldfinch comes, with a twitching chirrup. A suddenness, a startlement, at a branch end. Then sleeks as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt, she enters in to the thickness, and a machine starts up of chitterlings, and a tremor of wings, and trillings-

The whole tree trembles and thrills. It is the engine of her family. She stokes it full, then flirt out to a branch-end. Showing her barred face identity mask.  

• Then with eerie delicate whistle- chirrup whisperings. She launches away, towards the infinite. And the laburnum subsides to empty.

• To what extent is birds movement compared? What is the figure of speech used?

• Why is the image of the engine evoked by the poet?

• What do you understand about the beginning and the ending of the poem?

• Note down the sound words, the movement words, the dominant colour of the poem.