Pike and Hunting Snake Comparison

In the poems “The Hunting Snake” by Judith Wright and “Pike” by Ted Hughes a strong relationship between man and nature is explored and expressed. Judith Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and Aboriginal land rights campaigner. Ted Hughes was an English poet and children’s book writer. Themes discussed in his poems were mostly nature having being fascinated with them from an early age. He wrote frequently of the mixture of beauty and violence in the natural world. Both poets explore the appreciation that humans have for animals therefore creating a strong connection between the two. There is however a strong disconnection that is brought on by the fear and lack of understanding of the animal world that humans have. These traits are shown through the captivation of the characters in the poems as well as a complete terror that the animals give them.
We see that the characters in both poems have a deep admiration and captivation towards both animals in the poems. In “Hunting Snake” we see that the snake seems to be bewitching the two characters as they are so engrossed in the snake and the splendour it has. “Still as we stood our eyes went with him as he went”. Here we see that although they are terrified and dare not move as to disturb the snake, they also want to follow the snakes actions and see what it is doing. As well as this, the humans depict the snake as royalty as seen in Stanza 2. “Quested”, “parting grass”, “glazed” and finally, “diamond scale” all show this. Quested, meaning on a mission of some purpose could portray the snake as being a knight on a journey. This also relates to the “curves of diamond scale” which could be to demonstrate the amour that a knight would usually wear. Glazed could possibly describe the amour as being shiny. Also, the way that the grass parts only for the snake could show that it is of some importance as it moves out of the way to let it through. In the poem “Pike”, we see this admiration and view of royalty