THE LABURNUM TOP
~Summary~
-by Ted Hughes
Stanza- 1
The Laburnum top is silent, quite still
In the afternoon yellow September sunlight,
A few leaves yellowing, all its seeds fallen.
Explanation:The poet describes a beautiful sunny autumn. The Laburnum tree is silent and still.
It is laden with yellow leaves and yellow flowers in September. Its leaves have turned yellow because
of the autumn season and all its seeds have fallen.
Stanza-2
Till the goldfinch comes, with a twitching chirrup,
A suddenness, a startlement, at a branch end.
Then sleek as a lizard, and alert, and abrupt,
She enters the thickness, and a machine starts up
Of chitterings, and a tremor of wings, and trillingsThe
whole tree trembles and thrills.
It is the engine of her family.
She stokes it full, then flirts out to a branch-end Showing her barred face identity mask.
Explanation:Just then a goldfinch 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. Her little ones are excited on her arrival and start chirruping. The
cautious mother enters the tree with great care so that no predator can come to know that her babies
are housed in the nest. The poet has compared the alert, abrupt and sleek movement of the goldfinch
with that of a lizard. 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) i.e. 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 erergy 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.
Stanza-3
Then with eerie delicate whistle-chirrup
whisperings She launches away, towards the infinite
And the Laburnum subsides to empty.
Explanation:After some time, the goldfinch makes astrange short, high-pitched sound. Then she flies
away towards the infinite sky. The Laburnum tree becomes silent again after the departure of the
goldfinch and everything seems to be the same as it was before the arrival of the goldfinch.