Hawk Roosting

"Hawk Roosting" is a 1957 poem by Ted Hughes. Its speaker is a hawk, in whom are combined flawless creation and ruthless brutality. The hawk is designed to catch and kill other creatures, and this it does with clinical expertise. It is self-assured and knows its place in the natural order, content in its victories in the struggle for the survival of the fittest in the animal kingdom.

Lines like "No arguments assert my right" and "Nothing has changed since I began" suggest that the hawk is not like Man, who suffers moral qualms regarding violence and holding positions of power.

At no stage does the hawk try to hide what it is, explain its behaviour or apologise for its brutal ways. It delights in the essence of its being.

Title

It is the habit of a hawk to watch and wait for its prey from a vantage point. When it is roosting, it is either sleeping or perching to rest.

Analysis

First Stanza

The hawk is at peace ("eyes closed", "inaction"). He is not just in the wood but "in the top" of it, which is precisely where a hawk would be likely to perch and also symbolic of superiority. The hawk has no hopes of the impossible ("falsifying dreams"); its only concern is the practical one of killing. The hooked head and feet are the lethal weapons which indicate this.

econd Stanza

The hawk considers its advantages: high trees hide it and provide a good view; the air has the power to keep it afloat ("buoyancy") as it swoops down for the kill; the sun gives it the light by which to see; and the surface of the earth is open to its keen-eyed scrutiny. The hawk's arrogance comes through strongly ("convenience", "advantage to me", "upward for my inspection"). It is a self-centred creature.

Third Stanza

The word "locked" gives a sense of security: the hawk cannot be dislodged from its place ("on the rough bark") in nature. It marvels at the time that it must have taken to create it as well as at its domination of creation, which it may seize in its very tail. The anacoluthon "my each feather" helps to highlight the hawk's arrogance, by emphasising the word "each".

Fourth stanza

The hawk can slowly survey the world from above. Further arrogance comes through, the hawk regarding its superiority as an inarguable fact. There is no complexity about its make-up; it is direct and brutal, a formidable creature that kills mercilessly. There is indeed nothing subtle about a creature whose "manners are tearing off heads".

Fifth stanza

"The allotment [distribution, apportionment] of death" is to be read along with the tearing off of heads and this is the hawk's function, and the way that it spends its time. "Allotment" is an unemotional word, completely suited to the lack of feeling that the hawk has about killing. Lines two and three refer to the straight course that the hawk flies towards its prey and its single-mindedness in killing. "Through the bones of the living" is another example of the hawk's violent and dispassionate nature. Its right to do as it pleases is indisputable. It is in this way quite unlike people, who take moral stands and seek to prove their rights.

ixth stanza

The hawk sees itself as an essential part of creation and eternity. Line one refers to the sun's part in the creation of all lifeforms and how it assists them. In line two, we see that, unlike humans, whose views and behavioural ways change as time goes on, the hawk's have remained constant. It is happy with things the way they are; it is the victor, it knows its place in creation, and it is entirely satisfied