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Parlour-Piece
Ted Hughes![A horizontal poster with a colorful mosaic at the top features a poem titled Parlour-Piece, by Ted Hughes](https://poetrysociety.org/assets/poetry-in-motion/Ted-Hughes-NYC-Poetry-in-Motion.jpg)
Parlour-Piece
With love so like fire they dared not
Let it out into strawy small talk;
With love so like a flood they dared not
Let out a trickle lest the whole crack,
These two sat speechlessly;
Pale cool tea in tea-cups chaperoned
Stillness, silence, the eyes
Where fire and flood strained.
"Parlour-Piece" from Collected Poems by Ted Hughes.
Copyright © 2003 The Estate of Ted Hughes. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
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