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  • The Laburnum Top

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    Amen Raipur
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    The poet describes a silent and still laburnum tree laden with yellow leaves and flowers in September. A goldfinch arrives on the tree, stirring it to life. The mother goldfinch carefully enters her nest in the tree where her chicks begin chirping loudly. The once still tree is now trembling as the goldfinch feeds her young, fueling the noisy nest. After feeding them, the goldfinch rests quietly until launching away, leaving the tree silent once more.

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    The poet describes a silent and still laburnum tree laden with yellow leaves and flowers in September. A goldfinch arrives on the tree, stirring it to life. The mother goldfinch carefully enters her nest in the tree where her chicks begin chirping loudly. The once still tree is now trembling as the goldfinch feeds her young, fueling the noisy nest. After feeding them, the goldfinch rests quietly until launching away, leaving the tree silent once more.

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    329 views9 pages

    The Laburnum Top

    Uploaded by

    Amen Raipur
    The poet describes a silent and still laburnum tree laden with yellow leaves and flowers in September. A goldfinch arrives on the tree, stirring it to life. The mother goldfinch carefully enters her nest in the tree where her chicks begin chirping loudly. The once still tree is now trembling as the goldfinch feeds her young, fueling the noisy nest. After feeding them, the goldfinch rests quietly until launching away, leaving the tree silent once more.

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    of 9

    THE LABURNUM TOP

    TED HUGHES
    TED HUGHES
    The Laburnum Top

    Laburnum top- top part of the Laburnum tree

    The poet describes a beautiful sunny autumn day. The laburnum tree’s
    top is silent and still. It is laden with yellow leaves and yellow flowers in
    September. Its leaves have turned yellow as its autumn season and all its
    seeds have fallen. The tree was standing still and death-like.
    Trillings -to sing a series of
    Startlement –amazement. Chitterings-sound made by baby birds. quickly repeated high notes.
    Sleek- smooth. Tremor-shaking.
    Just then a goldfinch(yellow bird) alights on the Laburnum tree making short, high- pitched
    sounds. The goldfinch has her nest in the tree and her chicks are resting in the nest. On the
    mother’s return, a sudden movement stirs the tree. The life-less tree suddenly becomes alive. The
    tree is her shelter. She arrives at the end of the branch with a chirping sound. She enters with
    great care so that no predators can know where her nest is housed in the tree. She further moves
    to the other side of the branch with rapid and precautionary movement like a lizard. As soon as
    she arrives, her younger ones start chirping like a machine and vibrating and flapping their
    wings. The death-like tree suddenly becomes alive and it trembles and shakes.
    Trembles and thrills – shakes violently.
    Stokes-adds fuel(here the goldfinch is feeding her chicks).
    Flirts- moves abruptly or jerkily with light steps.
    Barred – striped.

    The goldfinch has been called the engine of her family. Just as the engine starts up the machine,
    her arrival in the nest has suddenly started up the silent machine(nest) ie the young ones have
    started chittering and making noise. By feeding her young ones, she has added fuel to the
    machine and as a result the chicks now have the energy to be active and make noise.
    After feeding her chicks, the goldfinch flies up and rests on the end of a branch of the tree, her
    identity concealed behind the yellow flowers and yellowing leaves.
    - TED HUGHES
    Eerie- strange in a frightening way or mysterious way.
    Launches - flies.
    Subsides to empty- become silent just as earlier(death-like).

    After sometime, the goldfinch makes a strange short, high-pitched sound.


    Then she flies away towards the infinite sky. The Laburnum tree become
    silent and death-like again after the departure of the goldfinch and
    everything seems to be the same as it was before the arrival of the
    goldfinch.
    Poetic/Literary Devices:
    Simile: A figure of speech when one thing is compared to another.
    Eg- ‘sleek as a lizard’(the goldfinch is compared to a lizard).

    Metaphor: A figure of speech where a word or phrase is used to represent something else.
    Eg- ‘engine of her family’ (engine represents the mother goldfinch and machine represents her
    brood of chicks).

    Alliteration- A number of words having similar first consonant sounds.


    Eg- ‘September sunlight’, ‘A suddenness, a startlement’, ‘tree trembles and thrills’.

    Onomatopoeia- A word is formed from a sound similar to it.


    Eg- ‘twitching chirrup’, ‘chitterings’, ‘trillings’, ‘whistle-chirrup’.

    Personification – the attribution of personal nature characteristics to something non-human


    Eg-The whole tree trembles and thrills.
    Transferred Epithet- It is a description which refers to a character or event but is used to
    describe a different situation or character.
    Eg- Her barred face identity mask(the flowers of the Laburnum Tree fall like bars and when
    the bird sits behind the flowers, the shadow of the flowers on her face looks like she is wearing
    a mask that has bars on it.

    Imagery- the image of an engine as it is a source of energy(the goldfinch)


    Theme of the poem :
    The Laburnum Top’ by Ted Hughes presents some important themes like autumnal change,
    motherhood, the transience of natural beauty, and the resonance of life. In the first section of the
    poem, the poet presents the theme of autumn and the natural change associated with this
    season. The “leaves yellowing” and “seeds fallen” depict a sense of pessimism. In the following
    section, the poet uses several important themes. The theme of motherhood is introduced by the
    arrival of the mother-goldfinch. There is also a reference to mother-nature in this section.
    Moreover, the resonance of life gets reflected by the sound, a symbol of life, made by the birds
    living in the tree. However, after the departure of the goldfinch, the beauty of the previous
    section fades away, depicting the transience of natural beauty.

    In the Hindi language, the laburnum tree is called ‘Amaltaas’.


    The Indian Lutino Ringneck is like the goldfinch.

    Rhyme Scheme-There is no set rhyme scheme in this poem.

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