"The Horses," by British poet Ted Hughes, describes the stillness and serenity of the natural world at dawn. The poem's speaker, likely representing Hughes himself, describes walking through the woods on a quiet, chilly morning. The speaker comes across a group of sleeping horses who are as still and silent as the surrounding landscape, appearing like magnificent gray statues in the darkness. When the sun rises and burns away the morning mists, the horses remain motionless, as though in no rush to heed this wake-up call. The speaker is moved by their patience and hopes to remember the peace and beauty of this isolated landscape upon returning to the noisy chaos of city life. Hughes published "The Horses" in his first collection, The Hawk in the Rain, in 1957.

• Read the full text of “The Horses”

• “The Horses” Summary

• “The Horses” Themes

  • 

    The Stability and Beauty of Nature

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 1-38
  • 

    Rural Silence vs. Urban Noise

    Where this theme appears in the poem:

    • Lines 27-38

• Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “The Horses”

  • Lines 1-4

    I climbed through ...
    ... cast in frost.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 4-8

    I came out ...
    ... the sky ahead.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 8-15

    And I saw ...
    ... grey silent world.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 16-18

    I listened in ...
    ... from the darkness.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 18-26

    Then the sun ...
    ... to the horses.

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 27-34

    There, still they ...
    ... red levelling rays—

    

    

    

    

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  • Lines 35-38

    In din of ...
    ... the horizons endure.

    

    

    

    

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• “The Horses” Symbols

  • 

    The Horses

    Where this symbol appears in the poem:

    • Lines 8-15: “And I saw the horses: / Huge in the dense grey—ten together— / Megalith-still. They breathed, making no move, / With draped manes and tilted hind-hooves, / Making no sound. / I passed: not one snorted or jerked its head. / Grey silent fragments / Of a grey silent world.”
    • Lines 26-38: “And came to the horses. /                                                     There, still they stood, / But now steaming and glistening under the flow of light, / Their draped stone manes, their tilted hind-hooves / Stirring under a thaw while all around them / The frost showed its fires. But still they made no sound. / Not one snorted or stamped, / Their hung heads patient as the horizons, / High over valleys in the red levelling rays— / In din of crowded streets, going among the years, the faces, / May I still meet my memory in so lonely a place / Between the streams and red clouds, hearing the curlews, / Hearing the horizons endure.”

• “The Horses” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language

  • Metaphor

    

    

    

    

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    Where metaphor appears in the poem:

    • Line 4: “A world cast in frost.”
    • Line 5: “tortuous statues in the iron light”
    • Line 6: “the valleys were draining the darkness”
    • Line 10: “Megalith-still.”
    • Lines 14-15: “Grey silent fragments / Of a grey silent world.”
    • Line 17: “The curlew's tear turned its edge on the silence.”
    • Line 18: “Slowly detail leafed from the darkness.”
    • Line 29: “draped stone manes”
    • Line 31: “The frost showed its fires”
    • Lines 33-34: “Their hung heads patient as the horizons, / High over valleys in the red levelling rays—”
    • Lines 37-38: “Between the streams and red clouds, hearing the curlews, / Hearing the horizons endure.”

  • Imagery

    

    

    

    

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    Where imagery appears in the poem:

    • Line 4: “A world cast in frost.”
    • Line 5: “tortuous statues in the iron light.”
    • Lines 6-8: “But the valleys were draining the darkness / Till the moorline—blackening dregs of the brightening grey— / Halved the sky ahead.”
    • Lines 9-10: “Huge in the dense grey—ten together— / Megalith-still.”
    • Lines 14-15: “Grey silent fragments / Of a grey silent world.”
    • Lines 18-22: “Then the sun / Orange, red, red erupted / Silently, and splitting to its core tore and flung cloud, / Shook the gulf open, showed blue, / And the big planets hanging—.”
    • Lines 28-31: “But now steaming and glistening under the flow of light, / Their draped stone manes, their tilted hind-hooves / Stirring under a thaw while all around them / The frost showed its fires.”

  • Alliteration

    

    

    

    

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    Where alliteration appears in the poem:

    • Line 1: “dawn dark”
    • Line 4: “cast,” “came”
    • Line 6: “draining,” “darkness”
    • Line 7: “blackening,” “brightening”
    • Line 8: “horses”
    • Line 9: “Huge,” “ten together”
    • Line 10: “Megalith,” “making,” “move”
    • Line 11: “manes,” “hind-hooves”
    • Line 17: “tear turned”
    • Line 18: “detail,” “darkness”
    • Line 20: “Silently,” “splitting”
    • Line 21: “Shook,” “showed”
    • Line 24: “dream, down”
    • Line 25: “dark”
    • Line 27: “There,” “still,” “they,” “stood”
    • Line 28: “steaming”
    • Line 29: “stone,” “hind-hooves”
    • Line 30: “Stirring”
    • Line 31: “frost,” “fires,” “still,” “sound”
    • Line 32: “snorted,” “stamped”
    • Line 33: “hung heads”
    • Line 34: “red,” “rays”
    • Line 36: “May,” “meet my memory”
    • Line 37: “clouds,” “curlews”
    • Line 38: “Hearing,” “horizons”

  • Repetition

    

    

    

    

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    Where repetition appears in the poem:

    • Line 3: “Not a leaf, not a bird—”
    • Line 10: “making no move,”
    • Line 11: “With draped manes and tilted hind-hooves,”
    • Line 12: “Making no sound.”
    • Line 13: “not one snorted”
    • Lines 14-15: “Grey silent fragments / Of a grey silent world.”
    • Line 19: “Orange, red, red erupted”
    • Line 29: “Their draped stone manes, their tilted hind-hooves”
    • Lines 31-32: “But still they made no sound. / Not one snorted or stamped,”
    • Lines 37-38: “hearing the curlews, / Hearing the horizons endure.”

  • Enjambment

    

    

    

    

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    Where enjambment appears in the poem:

    • Lines 4-5: “wood / Where”
    • Lines 6-7: “darkness / Till”
    • Lines 14-15: “fragments / Of”
    • Lines 18-19: “sun / Orange”
    • Lines 19-20: “erupted / Silently”
    • Lines 23-24: “turned / Stumbling”
    • Lines 24-25: “towards / The”
    • Lines 29-30: “hind-hooves / Stirring”
    • Lines 30-31: “them / The”
    • Lines 36-37: “place / Between”

• “The Horses” Vocabulary

  Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.

  • Frost-making
  • Tortuous
  • Moorline
  • Dregs
  • Megalith
  • Hind-hooves
  • Moor-ridge
  • Curlew
  • Tear
  • Leafed
  • Kindling
  • Steaming
  • Fires
  • Levelling
  • Din
  • (Location in poem: Line 2: “Evil air, a frost-making stillness,”)

• Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “The Horses”

  • Form

  • Meter

  • Rhyme Scheme

• “The Horses” Speaker

• “The Horses” Setting

• Literary and Historical Context of “The Horses”

• More “The Horses” Resources

  • External Resources

    • The Poem Out Loud — Listen to a reading of "The Horses."

    • Who Was Ted Hughes? — A short biography from the Academy of American Poets.

    • The Hawk in the Rain — A short discussion of Hughes's first book, in which "The Horses" appeared, by scholar Heather Clark.

    • Ted Hughes at Cambridge — A video exploring Hughes's connection to Pembroke College, Cambridge, where he studied myths and legends as a student.

    • Poets in Love: Hughes and Sylvia Plath — Frieda Hughes discusses the love, complicated relationship, and poetic legacy of her parents, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. 

  • LitCharts on Other Poems by Ted Hughes

    • A Memory

    • Anniversary

    • A Picture of Otto

    • Bayonet Charge

    • Cat and Mouse

    • Football at Slack

    • Fulbright Scholars

    • Full Moon and Little Frieda

    • Hawk Roosting

    • Relic

    • Roe-Deer

    • Snowdrop

    • Telegraph Wires

    • The Harvest Moon

    • The Jaguar

    • The Other

    • The Shot

    • The Thought Fox

    • Wind

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