Here's my 2pennethworth. Probably completely wrong!
BLACK VILLAGE OF GRAVE STONES – the graveyard is a big part of Heptonstall, which has obvious significance for Ted Hughes as I believe he was born there, and he lived there with Sylvia who is also buried in the churchyard.
SKULL OF AN IDIOT – suspect this will be a local who you will probably know about. Maybe John Hartley the Coiner maybe not. I have seen Hartley’s grave in the old churchyard but not sure why Hughes would call him an idiot. Any other contenders? Perhaps Hughes is referring to himself as the idiot. He comes from here after all.
WHOSE DREAMS DIE BACK
WHERE THEY WERE BORN – the idiot was born here and now he dies here, without fulfilling his dreams. Hughes predicting his own demise and burial?
SKULL OF A SHEEP
WHOSE MEAT MELTS
UNDER IT'S OWN RAFTERS – reference to life and death in and around Heptonstall. Hughes likens the bare ribs of a dead and decaying sheep to the rafters of a roof.
ONLY THE FLIES LEAVE IT - if it is left by flies it must be pretty rank but obviously not left by scavengers etc? Not particularly getting this line.
SKULL OF A BIRD – while we’re on death and skulls how about birds, whose skulls will no doubt be seen occasionally on the moors.
THE GREAT GEOGRAPHIE – not getting a connection here between skull of a bird and the great geographie. What I take from the great geographie is the moorland landscape cut by deep valleys as it is.
DRAINED TO SUTURES – sutures = bridges? Can’t think of anything else. The water drains off the moors and into the deeply cut valleys. Cuts are closed by sutures and valley sides are joined by bridges across rivers, also joining the communities on either side.
OF CRACKED WINDOWSILLS - likening the deeply cut landscape to windowsills rotted by rain and now splitting into cuts down which water runs. So the cracked window sills are a similie for the moorland landscape.
LIFE TRIES. – We try to live in this vast, damp, space that is full of death, on the moor as in the churchyard.
DEATH TRIES. – Death tries to take us, despite us trying to live.
THE STONE TRIES. – Hmm interesting, the stone houses, the stone walls, the rocks in the landscape – these all seem to resist the effects of decay.
ONLY THE RAIN NEVER TRIES – it just is; an ever present feature of life. It blackens the grave stones, melts the dead sheep, drains off the moor and into the rivers, rots and cracks the windowsills and makes them look like the landscape. In some ways it defines the landscape and the village – the stone houses built to resist the rain and preserve life, the bridges built to join the people either side of the fast flowing rivers.
Maybe our village idiot has something to do with all this. Maybe Hughes is referring to himself as the village idiot. Perhaps there is a reference to the death of Sylvia, I don’t know whether this poem pre-dates or post dates her suicide. Possibly his dreams of life with Sylvia are now reduced to her grave in this village that is shaped by the rain. Timing is critical. If the timing is not right this bit is rubbish.
BTW I like the look of your new race - down to Horse Bridge, up past the memorial to Pecket Well Mill and on to High Brown Knoll, then back. Definitely tempted.
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Originally Posted by Stolly
