Section: «Poems»
Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings:
artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.);
a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").
Private Ground
First frost, and I walk among the rose-fruit, the marble toesOf the Greek beauties you broughtOff Europe's relic heapTo sweeten your neck of the New..
© Sylvia Plath
The Beekeeper's Daughter
A garden of mouthings. Purple, scarlet-speckled, blackThe great corollas dilate, peeling back their silks.Their musk encroaches, circle after..
© Sylvia Plath
The Trial Of A Man
The ordinary milkman brought that dawnOf destiny, delivered to the doorIn square hermetic bottles, while the sunRuled decree of doomsday on the..
© Sylvia Plath
Eavesdropper
Your brother will trim my hedges!They darken your house,Nosy grower,Mole on my shoulder,To be scratched absently,To bleed, if it comes to that.The..
© Sylvia Plath
Denouement Villanelle
The telegram says you have gone awayAnd left our bankrupt circus on its own;There is nothing more for me to say.The maestro gives the singing birds..
© Sylvia Plath
The Rabbit Catcher
It was a place of force—The wind gagging my mouth with my own blown hair,Tearing off my voice, and the seaBlinding me with its lights, the lives of..
© Sylvia Plath
Face Lift
You bring me good news from the clinic,Whipping off your silk scarf, exhibiting the tight whiteMummy-cloths, smiling: I'm all right.When I was nine..
© Sylvia Plath
Doom Of Exiles
Now we, returning from the vaulted domesOf our colossal sleep, come home to findA tall metropolis of catacombsErected down the gangways of our..
© Sylvia Plath
The Beast
He was the bullman earliermKing of the dish, my lucky animal.Breathing was easy in his airy holding.The sun sat in his armpit.Nothing went moldy. The..
© Sylvia Plath
April Aubade
Worship this world of watercolor moodin glass pagodas hung with veils of greenwhere diamonds jangle hymns within the bloodand sap ascends the steeple..
© Sylvia Plath
The Ravaged Face
Outlandish as a circus, the ravaged faceParades the marketplace, lurid and strickenBy some unutterable chagrin,Maudlin from leaky eye to swollen..
© Sylvia Plath
Ouija
It is a chilly god, a god of shades,Rises to the glass from his black fathoms.At the window, those unborn, those undoneAssemble with the frail..
© Sylvia Plath
Waking In Winter
I can taste the tin of the sky —- the real tin thing.Winter dawn is the color of metal,The trees stiffen into place like burnt nerves.All night I..
© Sylvia Plath
Moonrise
Grub-white mulberries redden among leaves.I'll go out and sit in white like they do,Doing nothing. July's juice rounds their nubs.This park is..
© Sylvia Plath
To Eva Descending The Stair
Clocks cry: stillness is a lie, my dear;The wheels revolve, the universe keeps running.(Proud you halt upon the spiral stair.)The asteroids turn..
© Sylvia Plath
Doomsday
DoomsdayThe idiot bird leaps out and drunken leansAtop the broken universal clock:The hour is crowed in lunatic thirteens.Out painted stages fall..
© Sylvia Plath
Man In Black
Where the three magentaBreakwaters take the shoveAnd suck of the grey seaTo the left, and the waveUnfists against the dunBarb-wired headland ofThe..
© Sylvia Plath
Gulliver
Over your body the clouds goHigh, high and icilyAnd a little flat, as if theyFloated on a glass that was invisible.Unlike swans,Having no..
© Sylvia Plath
Channel Crossing
On storm-struck deck, wind sirens caterwaul;With each tilt, shock and shudder, our blunt shipCleaves forward into fury; dark as anger,Waves wallop..
© Sylvia Plath
The Surgeon At 2 A.M.
The white light is artificial, and hygienic as heaven.The microbes cannot survive it.They are departing in their transparent garments, turned..
© Sylvia Plath
Soliloquy Of The Solipsist
Soliloquy Of The SolipsistI?I walk alone;The midnight streetSpins itself from under my feet;When my eyes shutThese dreaming houses all snuff..
© Sylvia Plath
Mary's Song
The Sunday lamb cracks in its fat.The fatSacrifices its opacity. . . .A window, holy gold.The fire makes it precious,The same fireMelting the tallow..
© Sylvia Plath
The Courage Of Shutting-Up
The courage of the shut mouth, in spite of artillery!The line pink and quiet, a worm, basking.There are black disks behind it, the disks of..
© Sylvia Plath
Amnesiac
No use, no use, now, begging Recognize!There is nothing to do with such a beautiful blank but smooth it.Name, house, car keys,The little toy..
© Sylvia Plath
The Ghost's Leavetaking
Enter the chilly no-man's land of aboutFive o'clock in the morning, the no-color voidWhere the waking head rubbishes out the draggled lotOf sulfurous..
© Sylvia Plath