Please help me out in this, i'm dying.....?

Question

I urgently need the summary or explanation of the poem Laburnum Top by Ted Hughes.

Answer 1

Read this closely and try to figure out what Ted might be having up his sleeves! Have the poem close by as you read:


In Ted’s poem, ‘Howls and Whispers’, Sylvia undergoes just such a baptism of fire, but for her this so-called ‘initiation of Chesed’ became, quite literally, a life or death situation.

‘Howls and Whispers’, at Chesed, lies immediately above Netzach on the Pillar of Mercy and Force, and it reflects the Netzach poem, ‘The Laburnum’, just as ‘The Minotaur 2’ reflected ‘The Hidden Orestes’ which lay below it on the Pillar of Form. Again, as in ‘The Laburnum’, Sylvia is exposed to the powerful emotional energies of loved ones, mentors, guides and friends. And again, her ability to stand alone and to distinguish truth from illusion is challenged by this exposure. But now, too, her archetypal vision of wholeness – the vision which included perfect mastery of herself and of her writing, and a perfect marriage of equals1 – all this is threatened.

Disastrously, too, the Illusion of Chesed is ‘Being Right’, and this is the illusion which the Demons of Chesed (the Gasheklah: the Smiters and Disturbers of Souls), who are embodied in this poem in Sylvia’s advisors, foster in Sylvia. This same illusion is clearly demonstrate in her advisors’ own words and actions, as is the Qlippoth of Chesed (Ideology), for they base their views on moral codes and “facts”.

Self-righteousness fuelled the joyous “gratification” of Sylvia’s mother, and her advice to “be strong” was the result of her view that Sylvia’s marriage to Ted had always been wrong and that Ted was the guilty party, therefore Sylvia was right to get rid of him.

Sylvia’s analyst offered the ‘right’ advice, based (presumably) on her professional knowledge of marriage breakdown and divorce proceedings: it, too, reflected the assumption that Sylvia was in the right.


And the “professional dopester” who “squatted at” Sylvia’s ear and was the “bug” in Ted’s bed was driven by the need “to prove that only she/ Knew the facts”.

Ted’s description of these people, their interference and the results of that interference is detailed and clear. And it is factual, in so far as he quoted directly from letters which Sylvia left for him to find. Unlike ‘The Laburnum’, however, in which emotion held sway, the disturbers in ‘Howls and Whispers’ use “facts” and rational argument to increase Sylvia’s anger and mental confusion. Ted’s anger and distress in both poems is clear. What is less clear is how, in ‘Howls and Whispers’, as the mature poet and The Watcher at Tiphereth, he used his own Yetziritic archetype visions to place all these events within a Cabbalistic framework in order to obtain a more objective view of them. Such distancing is standard Cabbalistic practice. It provides the Cabbalist with a means of discerning error; of better controlling his or her emotions; and of reframing the past so as to establish a firm base from which to approach the future.
***



Personal reading:

Please take heart, we will help you "crack" this poem. Next time, make the poem readily visible for the reader to easily analyze and not add it in EDIT. EDITS do not show when one wants to focus closely on a poem like this one.

The Laburnum Top is silent,quite still
- of course the laburman is a tree and it is silent, there is no disturbance, no wind, it is just "quite still"

in the afternoon yellow September sunlight,
A few leaves yellowing,all its seeds fallen
- Notice that this is autumn season when leaves are turning yellow and some seeds have fallen off the tree.

-Then something disturbs the peace and quiet. A small bird, goldfinch approaches, chirruping (whistling). . . .
"Till the goldfinch comes, with a twitching chirrup" and there is some commotion as it perches on some branch of the tree,
"A suddeness,a startlement,at a branch end"
and then the image of a reptile is deployed to convey its mien behavior, "Then sleek as a lizard, and alert and abrupt." It is sleek and alert like a lizard as it abruptly
"enters the thickness,". Obviously this relates to its nest. It enters the nest abruptly and quite suddenly! To the speaker, it is as if it is entering into a dense thicket; this conveys the sense of almost invisible entrance to the bird's nest, hardly visible to the naked eye. Still the speaker is looking and listening and hears some noises likened to machines "and a machine starts up." It is as if there arrival of the mother bird has awakaned a machine, a clamor of sounds as the nestlings are ruffled into making small squeeky sounds as if machines are clinging against each other. The small sounds are the "chitterings," of the nestlings and also of the wide wings of the mother bird whirling about them making a more deeper sound likened to a tremor,. Hence there are several small squeeling sounds amidst a kind of tremor, "of tremor of wings,and trillings-" of the big bird and its nestlings.
To the speaker viewing all this activity and listening to the sounds, it is as if "The whole tree trembles and thrills", that is, the tree shakes and sways, filled with new life inside the nest when the mother bird enters the nest.

The tree appears as the life-blood of the mother bird's family, "It is the engine of her family." The nest sways with abandon as the bird pays it homage knowingly,"She stokes it full," then suddenly, the mother bird flies out to perch on a branch again, "flirts out to a branch end" and does what birds do best "Showing her barred face identity mask", that is, pluming herself and revealing her unique goldfinch colors."

Then as if the wonders of nature will never cease to amaze, the bird perorms its last mysterious miracle as if performing a weird act for the speaker. Yes. . . "with eerie delicate whistle chirrup whisperings," (notice the sense of "nature's" indifference to the onlooker and notice the sounds with emotional bent) the bird flies away, "launches away, towards the infinite" unknown destination.
And slowly but gradually, the tree resumes its initial former status before the mother bird arrived, that is to say, "And the laburnum subsides to empty" It is as if the speaker has witnessed one of the great wonders of mother-nature. The speaker remains in shock and awe at the sight of this marvel!!

*Try now to figure out, what Ted could really be saying! What emotions is he trying to evoke by this seemingly simple revelation of nature's mysteries!



Good luck

Answer 2

next time make sure you're really dying. laterz

Answer 3

how about google.com??