Sylvia Plath

A Birthday Present What is this, behind this veil, is it ugly, is it beautiful? Above The Oxbow Here in this valley of discrete academies Admonition If you dissect a bird Aftermath Compelled by calamity's magnet A Lesson In Vengeance In the dour ages Alicante Lullaby In Alicante they bowl the barrels A Life Touch it: it won't shrink like an eyeball, All The Dead Dears Rigged poker -stiff on her back Among the Narcissi Spry, wry, and gray as these March sticks, An Appearance The smile of iceboxes annihilates me. Apprehensions There is this white wall, above which the sky creates itself- April 18 the slime of all my yesterdays April Aubade Worship this world of watercolor mood Aquatic Nocturne deep in liquid Ariel Stasis in darkness. A Sorcerer Bids FarewellTo Seem I'm through with this grand looking-glass hotel A Winter Ship At this wharf there are no grand landings to speak of. Balloons Since Christmas they have lived with us, Barren Woman Empty, I echo to the least footfall, Berck-Plage (1) Bitter Strawberries All morning in the strawberry field Blackberrying Nobody in the lane, and nothing, nothing but blackberries, Black Pine Tree In An Orange Light Tell me what you see in it : Black Rook in Rainy Weather On the stiff twig up there Bluebeard I am sending back the key Blue Moles 1 Brasilia Will they occur, Bucolics Mayday: two came to field in such wise : Burning The Letters I made a fire; being tired By Candlelight This is winter, this is night, small love -- Candles They are the last romantics, these candles: Channel Crossing On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul; Child Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing. Childless Woman The womb Child's Park Stones In sunless air, under pines Cinderella The prince leans to the girl in scarlet heels, Contusion Color floods to the spot, dull purple. Conversation Among the Ruins Through portico of my elegant house you stalk Crossing The Water Black lake, black boat, two black, cut-paper people. Crystal Gazer Gerd sits spindle-shaped in her dark tent, Cut What a thrill - Daddy You do not do, you do not do Dark House This is a dark house, very big. Dark Wood, Dark Water This wood burns a dark Death & Co. Two, of course there are two. Denouement Villanelle The telegram says you have gone away Departure The figs on the fig tree in the yard are green; Dialogue Between Ghost and Priest In the rectory garden on his evening walk Dirge For A Joker Always in the middle of a kiss Doom Of Exiles Now we, returning from the vaulted domes Doomsday The idiot bird leaps out and drunken leans Edge The woman is perfected Electra on Azalea Path The day you died I went into the dirt, Elm I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root; Event How the elements solidify! --- Face Lift You bring me good news from the clinic, Family Reunion Outside in the street I hear Faun Haunched like a faun, he hooed Female Author All day she plays at chess with the bones of the world: Fever 103° Pure? What does it mean? Fiesta Melons In Benidorm there are melons, Finisterre This was the land's end: the last fingers, knuckled and rheumatic, Firesong Born green we were Flute Notes From A Reedy Pond Now coldness comes sifting down, layer after layer, For A Fatherless Son You will be aware of an absence, presently, Frog Autumn Summer grows old, cold-blooded mother. Full Fathom Five Old man, you surface seldom. Getting There How far is it? Gigolo Pocket watch, I tick well. Goatsucker Old goatherds swear how all night long they hear Gold Mouths Cry Gold mouths cry with the green young Gulliver Over your body the clouds go Hardcastle Crags Flintlike, her feet struck Heavy Woman Irrefutable, beautifully smug I Am Vertical But I would rather be horizontal. Incommunicado The groundhog on the mountain did not run In Plaster I shall never get out of this! There are two of me now: Insomniac The night is only a sort of carbon paper, I Want, I Want Open-mouthed, the baby god Jilted My thoughts are crabbed and sallow, Kindness Kindness glides about my house. Lady Lazarus I have done it again. Lament The sting of bees took away my father Landowners From my rented attic with no earth Last Words I do not want a plain box, I want a sarcophagus Leaving Early Lady, your room is lousy with flowers. Lesbos Viciousness in the kitchen! Letter in November Love, the world Letter To A Purist That grandiose colossus who Little Fugue The yew's black fingers wag: Lorelei It is no night to drown in: Love Is A Parallax 'Perspective betrays with its dichotomy: Love Letter Not easy to state the change you made. Lyonnesse No use whistling for Lyonnesse! Mad Girl's Love Song "I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; Maenad Once I was ordinary: Magi The abstracts hover like dull angels: Magnolia Shoals Up here among the gull cries Man In Black Where the three magenta Mary's Song The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat. Maudlin Mud-mattressed under the sign of the hag Medallion By the gate with star and moon Medusa Off that landspit of stony mouth-plugs, Metaphors I'm a riddle in nine syllables, Mirror I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. Miss Drake Proceeds To Supper No novice Monologue At 3 AM Better that every fiber crack Moonrise Grub-white mulberries redden among leaves. Morning Song Love set you going like a fat gold watch. Mushrooms Overnight, very Mussel Hunter At Rock Harbor I came before the water --- Mystic The air is a mill of hooks -- Natural History That lofty monarch, Monarch Mind, Never Try to Trick Me with a Kiss Never try to trick me with a kiss New Year On Dartmoor This is newness : every little tawdry Nick and the Candlestick I am a miner. The light burns blue. Night Shift It was not a heart, beating. Notes To A Neophyte Take the general mumble, Ode For Ted From under the crunch of my man's boot Old Ladies' Home Sharded in black, like beetles, On Deck Midnight in the mid-Atlantic. On deck. On Looking Into The Eyes Of A Demon Lover Here are two pupils Ouija It is a chilly god, a god of shades, Owl Clocks belled twelve. Main street showed otherwise Paralytic It happens. Will it go on? ---- Parliament Hill Fields On this bald hill the new year hones its edge. Perseus The Triumph of Wit Over Suffering Pheasant You said you would kill it this morning. Poems, Potatoes The word, defining, muzzles; the drawn line Point Shirley From Water-Tower Hill to the brick prison Polly's Tree A dream tree, Polly's tree: Poppies In July Little poppies, little hell flames, Poppies in October Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts. Private Ground First frost, and I walk among the rose-fruit, the marble toes Prologue To Spring The winter landscape hangs in balance now, Prospect Among orange-tile rooftops Purdah Jade -- Pursuit Dans le fond des forêts votre image me suit. Recantation 'Tea leaves I've given up, Resolve Day of mist: day of tarnish Rhyme I've got a stubborn goose whose gut's Sculptor To his house the bodiless Sheep in Fog The hills step off into whiteness. Sleepers No map traces the street Sleep in the Mojave Desert Out here there are no hearthstones, Snakecharmer As the gods began one world, and man another, Soliloquy of the Solipsist I? Song For A Summer's Day Through fen and farmland walking Sonnet : To Eva All right, let's say you could take a skull and break it Sonnet to Satan In darkroom of your eye the moonly mind Southern Sunrise Color of lemon, mango, peach, Sow God knows how our neighbor managed to breed Spinster Now this particular girl Stillborn These poems do not live: it's a sad diagnosis. Stings Bare-handed, I hand the combs. Strumpet Song With white frost gone Suicide Off Egg Rock Behind him the hotdogs split and drizzled Tale of a Tub The photographic chamber of the eye Terminal Riding home from credulous blue domes, Thalidomide O half moon--- The Applicant First, are you our sort of a person? The Arrival of the Bee Box I ordered this, clean wood box The Babysitters It is ten years, now, since we rowed to Children's Island. The Beast He was the bullman earlierm The Beekeeper's Daughter A garden of mouthings. Purple, scarlet-speckled, black The Bee Meeting Who are these people at the bridge to meet me? They are the villagers---- The Bull of Bendylaw The black bull bellowed before the sea. The Burnt-out Spa An old beast ended in this place: The Colossus I shall never get you put together entirely, The Companionable Ills The nose-end that twitches, the old imperfections--- The Couriers The word of a snail on the plate of a leaf? The Dead Revolving in oval loops of solar speed, The Death Of Myth-Making Two virtues ride, by stallion, by nag, The Disquieting Muses Mother, mother, what ill-bred aunt The Everlasting Monday Thou shalt have an everlasting The Eye-Mote Blameless as daylight I stood looking The Fearful This man makes a pseudonym The Ghost's Leavetaking Enter the chilly no-man's land of about The Glutton He, hunger-strung, hard to slake, The Goring Arena dust rusted by four bulls' blood to a dull redness, The Great Carbuncle We came over the moor-top The Hanging Man By the roots of my hair some god got hold of me. The Hermit At Outermost House Sky and sea, horizon-hinged The Manor Garden The fountains are dry and the roses over. The Moon and the Yew tree "This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary. The Munich Mannequins Perfection is terrible, it cannot have children. The Night Dances A smile fell in the grass. The Other You come in late, wiping your lips. The Other Two All summer we moved in a villa brimful of echos, The Queen's Complaint In ruck and quibble of courtfolk The Ravaged Face Outlandish as a circus, the ravaged face The Rival If the moon smiled, she would resemble you. The Shrike When night comes black The Sleepers No map traces the street The Stones This is the city where men are mended. The Surgeon At 2 A.M. The white light is artificial, and hygienic as heaven. The Swarm Somebody is shooting at something in our town -- The Thin People They are always with us, the thin people The Times Are Tidy Unlucky the hero born The Trial Of A Man The ordinary milkman brought that dawn Three Women A Poem for Three Voices To A Jilted Lover Cold on my narrow cot I lie To Eva Descending The Stair Clocks cry: stillness is a lie, my dear; Totem The engine is killing the track, the track is silver, Touch-and-Go Sing praise for statuary: Tulips The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. Two Campers in Cloud Country (Rock Lake, Canada) Two Lovers and a Beachcomber by the Real Sea Cold and final, the imagination Two Sisters of Persephone Two girls there are : within the house Two Views of a Cadaver Room 1 Vanity Fair Through frost-thick weather Verbal Calisthenics My love for you is more Virgin in a Tree How this tart fable instructs Waking in Winter I can taste the tin of the sky --- the real tin thing. Watercolor of Grantchester Meadows There, spring lambs jam the sheepfold. In air Whiteness I Remember Whiteness being what I remember Whitsun This is not what I meant: Who The month of flowering's finished. The fruit's in, Widow Widow. The word consumes itself --- Wintering This is the easy time, there is nothing doing. Winter Landscape, With Rooks Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone, Winter Trees The wet dawn inks are doing their blue dissolve. Witch Burning In the marketplace they are piling the dry sticks. Words Axes Words heard, by accident, over the phone O mud, mud, how fluid! --- Wuthering Heights The horizons ring me like faggots, Yaddo : The Grand Manor Woodsmoke and a distant loudspeaker Yadwigha, on a Red Couch, Among Lillies Yadwigha, the literalists once wondered how you Years They enter as animals from the outer You're Clownlike, happiest on your hands,