What is the summary of the poem "The Laburnum Top" by Ted Hughes?

Ted
Hughes's "The Laburnum Top" is a poem about the cycle of life. It begins, in the first
stanza, with a description of a tree in autumn. Some of its leaves are turning yellow, and its
seeds have fallen. This represents one life fading and another, in the form of the seeds, about
to begin.

In the second stanza, a goldfinch arrives with "A suddeness, a
startlement," and the tree is brought back to life again. Its branches become busy with
"chitterings, and . . . tremor of wings, and trillings," and the entire tree
"trembles and thrills." The tree is also described, metaphorically, as "the
engine" of the bird's family. In other words, the tree helps the bird and its family to
flourish and, as it were, move forward. It provides the bird, and its family, with a place to
rest and find shelter. It also provides food, in the form of sap and buds, for example. This
stanza represents the co-dependency of life. One life, even (or perhaps especially) when it may
be fading, helps another. The old life helps the young life by providing for it, and the young
life in turn helps the old life by revitalizing it.

In the third and fourth
stanzas, the goldfinch flies away, "towards the infinite," and the tree dies, or
"subsides to empty." These stanzas represent death. This ending to the poem also
perhaps suggests that there is a spiritual side to life. Indeed, the bird may symbolize the soul
of the tree, which animates life (the tree) for a short while and then leaves to return to
"the infinite." Without the soul, life, like the tree, is
"empty."