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"Full Moon and Little Frieda"

by Ted Hughes

A cool small evening shrunk to a dog bark and the clank of a bucket

And you listening. A spider’s web, tense for the dew’s touch. A pail lifted, still and brimming – mirror To tempt a first star to a tremor.

Cows are going home in the lane there, looping the hedges with their warm wreaths of breath – A dark river of blood, many boulders, Balancing unspilled milk.

“Moon!” you cry suddenly, “Moon! Moon!”

The moon has stepped back like an artist gazing amazed at a work That points at him amazed.