The Poetry of Sylvia Plath about "Child"

Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose names you meditate —
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little

Stalk without wrinkle,

Pool in which images

Should be grand and classical

Not this troublous

Wringing of hands, this dark

Ceiling without a star.

It is a world of snow now.

The color of the water is black.

The black trees are sticks.

And suddenly the birds are different,

Seven birds in the palms.

They have flown in.

Are you one of them?

Such nonsense. Such extravagant eyes —

I should take you and

Bury you in my hair

And swing you on the end of a pigtail.

Or feed you to the goldfish Kept in my

Bowl, a green bowl,

Gold hooks and a yellow line

And the barnacle-pocked

Not to mention the bald white

Sideshow of my face,

My face like a pearl.

Why should I be lonely

When the yellow evening settles its lamps on you?

So what if the rain falls?

So what if the sun sets?

So what if trucks go back and forth across

The hill, like toys?

The mountain is a Buddha.

This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary.

The trees of the mind are black. The light is blue.

The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God,

Prickling my ankles and murmuring of their humility.

Fumy, spiritous mists inhabit this place

Separated from my house by a row of headstones.

I simply cannot see where there is to get to.

The moon is no door. It is a face in its own right,

White as a knuckle and terribly upset.

It drags the sea after it like a dark crime; it is quiet

With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.

Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —

Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection

At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The white damask curtains lift, and fall,

And fall again. The apples fall like rain.

With the O-gape of complete despair. I live here.

Twice on Sunday, the bells startle the sky —

Eight great tongues affirming the Resurrection

At the end, they soberly bong out their names.

The white damask curtains lift, and fall,

And fall again. The apples fall like rain.