work and play

Work And Play
"The swallow and the serpent"

In this poem, Hughes sets out to contrast two animals, one real and the other metaphorical. Even a look at the shape of the poem on the page will give you a hint of this. The lines on the swallow are set against the margin and tend to be quite long, while the lines on the serpent are inset and are generally shorter.

The two creatures are laden with metaphors to explain their condition or the nature of their activity, but the basic premise on which the poem works is that, even though the swallow "toils" (line1), she is a thing of beauty, life and energy. On the other hand, the serpent crawls in the dust of the earth suffering all sorts of discomfort in the name of leisure.

Hughes intends to show us that people are ridiculous. They imagine that a seaside visit is delightful, as you can see in the words "play" and "idle" (line 8), but the actuality is quite ghastly. The contrasting swallow is "glittering voltage" (line2) in the air. ...