by Sylvia Plath
knobbed quartz; flayed colors ripen
rich, brown, sudden in sunglint.
For his least look, scant acres yield:
each finger-furrowed field
heaves forth stalk, leaf, fruit-nubbed emerald;
bright grain sprung so rarely
he hauls to his will early;
at his hand’s staunch hest, birds build.
Ringdoves roost well within his wood,
shirr songs to suit which mood
he saunters in; how but most glad
could be this adam’s woman
when all earth his words do summon
leaps to laud such man’s blood!
----------
Song*
Through fen and farmland walking
with my high mighty love
I saw slow flocked cows move
white hulks on their day’s cruising;
milk-sap sprang for their grazing.
Spruce air was bright for looking:
most far in blue, aloft,
clouds steered a burnished drift;
larks’ nip and tuck arising
came in for my love’s praising.
Sheen of the noon sun striking
took my heart as if
it were a green-tipped leaf
kindled by such rare seizing
into an ardent blazing.
In a nest of spiders plucking
silk of their frail trade
we made our proper bed;
under yellow willows’ hazing
I lay for my love’s pleasing.
No thought was there of tricking,
yet the artful spider spun
a web for my one man
till at the day’s flawed closing
no call could work his rising.
Now far from that ransacking
I range in my unease
and my whole wonder is
that frost’s felled all worth prizing
and the early year turned freezing
like the bleak shape of my losing.
----------
And these are for you to say aloud on your birthday. And remember to buy a lovely suitcase! Please let me know you are coming so I can start making reservations. This is eden here, and the people are all shining and I must show it you!
All my love –
your singing girl –
sivvy
ps. If ever someone can get me several copies of CS Monitor articles, please send!
xxx
sivvy
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Monday 23 April 1956
TLS (aerogramme),
Indiana University
Monday, April 23rd
Dearest mother . . .
Well, finally the blundering American Express sent me your letter from Rome telling about the suitcase you bought! Our minds certainly work on the same track! I am sorry to have gone on so about it, you must think I have a memory like water. Now, listen, bring all my money, in dollars, don’t change a cent to pounds, and let yourself in for 10 days at my joyful expense here in England.
I have already planned to stay in London 3 nights, and have written to reserve a room for us: we’ll just eat and talk the day you come, but for the next two I’ll get some theater tickets and we’ll plan jaunts to flowering parks, Picadilly, Trafalgar Square, all very easy, walking, strolling, feeding pigeons and sunning ourselves like happy clams. Then, to Cambridge, where I have already reserved a room for you for 2 nights; let me know if you wish to stay longer. I have made a contract with one of my husky men to teach me how to manage a punt before you come, so you shall step one afternoon from your room at the beautiful Garden House Hotel* right onto the Cam and be boated up to Granchester through weeping willows for tea in an orchard! Worry about nothing. Just let me know your predilections and it shall be accomplished.
After this hectic week I’ll go to the English-speaking union to see about plans for the next 7 days of our trip: I’ll be discovering things with you then and am revolving several plans which I’d like you to write me about, giving your preference: Am I right in thinking you’d rather be a “nature-woman” and wander in beautiful country in peace with your daughter than rush through tourist spots like Stratford? If so, I thought of discovering either the Lake Country, Cornwall, or Wales for a week of simple pleasure: my main joy will be giving you sun (if only England doesn’t betray me after this green eden of a spring!) and food and all my love and care.
Then, if you plan to go to Paris, I really would like to get you settled there. I could only stay a day or two, but in that time, I’d see you in a central, reasonable hotel, do my best in my still rough-hewn french, loan you my beautiful Paris map, and take you at least to some of my favorite haunts. It will be tourist-crowded, and I want to show you how to manage and perhaps some very special places. I simply can’t let you go there yourself, without a competent guide, and if you will accept my introduction (which as you may see from my article, isn’t too bad) I’ll be happy to write and reserve rooms there too, if you let me know how many days you want to stay, for it will be packed with tourists!
Me: I’m cherishing the idea of buying an Olivetti in London, under your guidance, if you will be so good (so I won’t get cheated) and plan to go to Spain immediately after leaving you in Paris to write, sun and live as cheaply as possible for a month. I can really write now. I have never been so alive. You, too, owe the other end of your line your presence: Frank, Dot, even Grampy, you must remember, have had rich, full lives: they have their families (Frank and Dot have a partner to share whatever choices they must make, whatever troubles to bear; Grampy has had as good a life as a man his age could wish). You, alone, of all, have had crosses that would cause many a stronger woman to break under the never-ceasing load.
You have born daddy’s long hard death, and taken on a man’s portion in your work; you have fought your own ulcer-attacks, kept us children sheltered, happy, rich with art & music lessons, camp and play; you have seen me through that black night when the only word I knew was No and when I thought I could never write or think again; and, you have been brave through your own operation. Now, just as you begin to breathe, this terrible slow, dragging pain comes upon you, almost as if it would be too easy to free you so soon from the deepest, most exhausting care and giving of love.
Well, when grampy is silent, resentful, when Frank doesn’t speak, or Dot is dubious, just think in your heart of the rich, full homes they live in now, with wife and husband; think of the countless years of joy grampy has had, of the home you have made him, which would not have been possible without you, and which he still shall share, and know with a certain knowing that you deserve, too, to be with the loved ones who can give you strength in your trouble: Warren and myself. Think of your trip here as a trip to the heart of strength in your daughter who loves you more dearly than words can say. I am waiting for you, and your trip shall be for your own soul’s health and growing; you need, even as Frank and Dot now have, a context where all burdens are not on your shoulders, where some loving person comes to heft the hardest, to walk beside you. Know this, and know that it is right you should come. You need to imbibe power and health and serenity to return to your job, grampy, and whatever else our home has in store. I feel with all my joy and life that these are qualities I can give you, from the fulness and brimming of my heart. So come, and slowly we will walk through green gardens and marvel at this strange and sweet world.
your own loving
sivvy
PS: Guess what! I’m going to London this Tuesday to attend a posh press reception for comrades Bulganin and Khruschev at the Claridge Hotel! As a Varsity reporter, with two other boys & a girl!* I am overcome. Very tempted to capitalize on article material! Think I told you before. but forgive me!
xxx
sivvy
TO Warren Plath
Monday 23 April 1956
TLS in greeting card*
(photocopy),
Indiana University
I feel / Gay as a Ferris / Wheel / As an Acrobat Troupe / As a / Loop the loop / As a pink / Lemonade / As a Penny / Arcade / And the reason I’m gay / As a carnival in May / Is because / It’s Your Birthday
best / love / from / your own sivvy / see inside →
Monday morning, April 23rd
Dearest Warren . . .
I realize this card may sound strange to you, coming as it does in the midst of this dark time which I am so grieved not so share, but it is the week of your birthday, and for this I rejoice, and am glad. And it is spring in Cambridge, with incredible fields of daffodils and cherry blossoms and rare colored birds singing and a peace of golden honey-air along the Cam, and for this I am glad: that in face of blackness and cruelty and unreason, Chaucer’s world sprouts green in everlasting cycles of birth leaps like the corn-god out of the husks of death.
This letter is only for you: I am asking you some things to help me in. First, I have hacked through a hard vacation, shared really only the best parts with mother, not the racking ones (it is so easy to give merely the impression of rich joy here, and not the roots of sorrow and hurt from which it comes) and am now coming into the full of my power: I am writing poetry as I never have before, and it is the best, because I am strong in myself and in love with the only man in the world who is my match and whom I shall no doubt never see after this summer as he is going to Australia. He is worth you, the very first one, and worth me and all the strength and health I have; maybe mother will show you one or two poems I’ve sent her about him; his name is Ted Hughes: he is tall, hulking, with rough brown hair, a large-cut face, hands like derricks, a voice more thundering and rich than Dylan Thomas, a force that breaks windows when he stalks into a room, half-Irish and half-French with a gift of story-telling that spellbinds; he writes poetry that masters form, bangs and smashes through speech to go better than Yeats, better than Hopkins at its best: none of this pale niggling cerebralizing. We are both strong and healthy as blazes. He throws the discus, hunts, shoots, plows, grafts roses, writes for film studios, knows the name of every bird and beast hopping over the moors: I am learning a new vocabulary from him. He hikes into the room, yanks out Chaucer or Shakespeare or Hopkins or Blake and begins to read in a voice that shakes the house. We walked 15 miles the other day, yelling poetry and words and stories at each other. He has done nothing but write, rave, work and desert women for 10 years (graduated from Cambridge two years ago) and is the most brilliant, creative, and violently strong man I have ever met. All this, because I had to tell someone; my poetry, my words, my eyes are sprouting like the bay tree; I am learning about coots and stoats and moles and Cuchulain and Snatchcraftington, one of his fairytale wizards with a face like rhubarb-leaf!
I cook trout and steak in my room, learn poems, read aloud, find owls and hares which come when he whistles; he is rough, rugged: has worn the same thick black sweater & khaki pants for the two months I’ve known him. What, you say, is the catch? The catch is that he has never thought about anything or anyone except himself and his will (but for a few men friends) and has done a kind of uncaring rip through every woman he’s ever met. I am the first one, I think, who is as strong in herself (by this I mean, the sense of self which is inviolable & creative in spite of all) as he is, who can see the lack of care in him, and be independent: this gives me a kind of balance of power. I could make him kind, I think, and a little more caring of people; but I know what I shall never again find his like in the world. Such times we have. I would give everything if you could meet him; never have two people, too strong for most in one dose, lived so powerfully & creatively!
All this, by way of the joy I live in. Now, to business: I want mother to come to England for 10 green healing days at my expense. I shall plan all, shall give all my love and care to her: London, Cambridge, and some country place where she can rest, sun, heal, and be mended and grow strong in the world of nature, which I am learning is the solace of all grief and pain. I want you to work daily at her, emphasizing something she may not see in face of grampy’s resentment & Frank & Dot’s grudging: mother alone, of all of them, has has crosses to bear that would shatter a stronger soul: daddy’s long hard death, her own ulcer, taking man’s role of job, my black time when I thought I could never think or write again, her operation, and now, this. Grampy has had the best, richest life a man could want for his years with grammy as partner; Frank and Dot have husband and wife to bear choices, share sorrow, heft burdens. Mother alone has had to fight: now you and I are come of age and coming of strength: we can give her that power and renewed joy of living which the others have: She needs to be taken care of, and for this, I want you to convince her subtly that she not only deserves to come, but that it is morally the right thing: I shall plan all details, and she will have to do nothing but say her wishes, be guided about, and trust me to devote every fiber of my new strength & love to this end; I shall even see her on her first days in Paris, though I vowed never to return there. Do write. I hunger so to share some of my life with you, to learn of yours, even though the obligations of my philosophy course is now on my neck, I write: one has to make time. I love you beyond words. You and mother are my whole family, and now you and I must give of ourselves to make her life rich and radiant, in the midst of her great sorrow. I so hope you can come to Europe this summer.
My most proud love on your birthday & coming of age!
Sivvy
ps. – see back!
A small postscript, as I discovered this white space and can’t let a speck go to waste! I am, as mother may tell, a reporter on Varsity, the Cambridge weekly paper, and just got a huge article & two sketches on Paris published this week which I sent her. Tuesday, I am going to London with 3 other reporters to a Press reception for comrades Bulganin and Krushchev! How’s that for High! Maybe I’ll interview stewards & Scotland yard for an article! What a chance! Am hoping to get scattered poems published this spring & get together a book for a contest in June at which Richard Wilbur & 4 other poets whose style is congenial to mine, will judge; won’t know till October, but am determined to publish a book of 33 poems within next year. Then, apply for a Saxton fellowship to write for a year in Italy or Spain. I am living like mad, and would like to find my voice in writing: I’m sketching again, too: stilted, stiff, but fun. Oh, Warren, how I long to see you again; we can teach each other so much by our respective lives; I am finding a growing self and soul of which I am becoming proud in a good, honest sense. The one sin in this world is exploiting other people or cheating & fooling oneself; it’s a lifelong fight to forge a vital life; I wish us both the guts and grace to do it on your birthday and my half-birthday. I’ll get Ted to read your horoscope! He does that, too!
Love again,
Sivvy
ps. maybe you could share some of this with mother after all!
TO Aurelia Schober Plath
Thursday 26 April 1956
TLS (aerogramme),
Indiana University
Thursday morning, April 26
Dearest mother . . .
Happy birthday! I am thinking of you at this very moment and hoping that in the midst of your present trial you can spare the energy and moment to be glad, most utterly, that you were born, to carry on grammy’s spirit and flesh, and to spread the blood and being of our line to Warren and me: we have had such joys in our lives that it is only fitting somehow we be chastened and strengthened by bearing sorrow. If anyone asked me what time of my life was most invaluable, I would say those 6 terrible months at McLean: for by re-forging my soul, I am a woman now the like of which I could never have dreamed of.
Last night, at the posh Claridge Hotel, with the hammer & sickle waving over the door, your daughter shook hands with Bulganin! Oh, mother, such a time! Read the April 24th write-ups in the papers! The biggest diplomatic crush of all time! I stayed the full 2-hours from 6:30 to 8:30 and gorged on
more black caviare than I’ve ever seen in my life, drank Russia’s health in vodka, and met the most amazing people, all through my joy: rubbed elbows with Anthony Eden* and Clement Attlee,* was introduced as “Miss Plath” by red-clad major domo to Madame and Mr. Malik,* Soviet Ambassadors who threw the party. Met many mayors: by accident, mayor of Northampton, England,* who, by coincidence, was going to entertain the mayor from my Northampton* in a few weeks; had picture taken with the lovely, red-fezzed Commissioner of Nigeria and his beautiful, laughing negro wife:* both spoke perfect English and understood my childlike delight at the whole affair. Saw Khrushchev & Bulganin from inches in a press of people that would have crushed them to death had it not been for muscular Russian body-guards: Bulganin a dear white-bearded little man with clear blue eyes, went about like a small plump ship, waving two fingers, smiling, shaking hands and having his interpreters translate the good wishes of all who spoke to him: I found myself shaking his hand and begging “Please do come to visit Cambridge” which word was repeated by his interpreters. The crowd broke into “For he’s a jolly good fellow” and one wise-cracking British radio man hissed in my ear: “They’ll never let you back in the states if you sing that!” Had several short, good talks with Russian officers who were learning English, even mentioned Dostoevsky, and ended up toasting Russo-American relations in vodka with a charming blond chap working in commerce: both of us agreeing that if we could meet each other as simple people who wanted to have families and jobs and a good life, there would never be any wars, because we would make such friends.
Now, back in Cambridge, it seems impossible to settle down to work: had my first supervision Tuesday morning with my brilliant woman (who reminds me so much of Dr. Beuscher) and we had a fine spirited hour discussing Plato’s Gorgias.* My mind is whetted; I have never been so keen, so eager to learn: I am in pure delight about this supervision. Am also working on a book of poems which I shall submit just before you come in June to a board of judges* (5) including the best poets and most congenial to my style: Louise Bogan, Richard Wilbur, Rolfe Humphries, May Sarton & one other.* If this does not pass, I shall write more in the summer and turn it in for the Yale Series of Younger Poets next winter. Ted is teaching me about horoscopes, how to cook herring roes, and we are going to the world’s biggest circus tonight. God, such a life!