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aCTIVITy 4.9
continued
About the Author
Ted Hughes (1930–1998) is considered to be one of the twentieth century’s greatest poets. He wrote almost 90 books during his long career and won numerous prizes and fellowships. In 1984, he was appointed England’s poet laureate.
“ Mooses”
by Ted Hughes
The goofy Moose, the walking house frame,
Is lost
In the forest. He bumps, he blunders, he stands.
With massy bony thoughts sticking out near his ears— Reaching out palm upwards, to catch whatever might be falling from heaven—
He tries to think,
Leaning their huge weight
On the lectern of his front legs. He can’t find the world!
Where did it go? What
does a world look like?
The Moose
Crashes on, and crashes into a
lake, and stares at the
mountain and cries:
‘Where do I belong? This is no place!’
He turns dragging half the lake out after him And charges the crackling underbrush
He meets another Moose
He stares, he thinks: ‘It’s only a mirror!’
Where is the world?’ he groans. ‘O my lost world!
And why am I so ugly?
‘And why am I so far away from my feet?’
my Notes
poetry
Unit 4 • The Challenge of Comedy 299
literary Terms
Alliteration is the repetition of consonant sounds at the beginnings of words that are close together.
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