I sit in the top of the wood

Ted Hughes' poem 'Hawk Roosting' is a monologue: the hawk itself speaks, from beginning to end.

It sits at the top of a wood with its eyes closed. It is not asleep; it is dreaming only of perfect kills, and of eating.

Its hooked head and hooked feet are perfectly built for hunting.

Everything around it, the hawk believes, is there to help it: the high trees, the air that lifts its wings, the sun's rays. Even the earth faces upward for the hawk to inspect, like a servant before a master.

'Roosting' means resting on a perch. The whole poem is the hawk's proud thinking, at rest.

The hawk sees the whole world as made for it.